


Black, Silver and Gold

by aintnoonefancy



Series: Mercury is a Poison [1]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: AU, Animal Death, Attempted Murder, Betrayal, Blood, Body Horror, Broken Bones, Dark Humor, Dehumanizing Language, Dislocated Joint, Emotional Abuse, Graphic Injury, Human Sacrifice, Implied Sexual Content, Impossible Architecture, Incurable Cough Of Doom, Intoxication, Manipulative Behavior, Multi, Physical Abuse, Religious Themes, Sacrifice, Stragulation, Toxic Relationship, Unhealthy Polyamory, Victim Blaming, alcohol mention, animal cruelty, dirty humor, eldritch horror, implied starvation, on screen death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:28:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23449303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintnoonefancy/pseuds/aintnoonefancy
Summary: Henry Stein was a family man, everyone knew that. Family men would never hurt their loved ones and friends.AKA Henry Stein has a debt to settle with more than just Joey Drew.
Relationships: Henry Stein/Linda Stein, Joey Drew/Henry Stein/Bertrum Piedmont
Series: Mercury is a Poison [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1785643
Comments: 31
Kudos: 9





	1. Rated E For Everyone

“Papa, papa!” His granddaughter ran up to him, beaming her gap toothed smile, hyped up on all the sugar and treats available to her while being spoiled rotten for the weekend. “ _Papapapa--_ let me _up_!”

Henry smiled and scooped his granddaughter up into his arms. “What does my little princess want?”

She was perfect. The best of his own features and a few of Linda’s, and practically nothing from her other relations, all wide eyes and big smiles and chubby cheeks. And as much as he adored her, she worshiped him. He hung up the moon and the stars for this little girl. Her love for him was absolutely blind and unconditional. It made it all so much easier.

“Who’s Joey Drew?” 

... Maybe not quite perfect. “No one,” he answered.

She squirmed in his grip, pushing at his chest as his arm brought her closer. “But he is someone!” she protested. “And you keep getting all these packages and letters--”

“ _Linda_ ,” he growled. “Do you not remember our talk about secret things?”

Her expression fell.

Close to what he wanted, but not good enough. He needed her to understand. “Do you remember Nala, Linda?”

And now her childish resistance crumpled. “Nala got run over,” she confirmed, voice very solemn for a nine year old, thick with held back words and revelations. After all, she could hardly tell her father about the state in which she found her beloved pet, as Henry had painstakingly explained to her. Predictably, her breathing hitched and tears brimmed in her eyes.

A spark of annoyance flickered to life in his chest. God, the very same things that made her so easy to manipulate made her such a hassle to bother with. “Come on,” he said, affecting a lighter tone as he pinched her cheek. “ _Smile_ , princess. No one likes a frowner.”

His son would be by anytime now to pick her up and he wasn’t about to be separated from his princess because his son got the wrong impression. She just had to get over herself and dry up her tears, simple as that.

Time for a bit of incentive. He asked her, “You want some ice-cream?”

Linda worried her lip and watched him with those beautiful wide eyes she got from her namesake. Disgusting and unfair, turning that shade of green to something designed to guilt him. So she was starting to question him, push against his direction. Sure, she loved and trusted him, that much was apparent, but a vague promise of affection and some treats weren’t enough to buy her cooperation anymore. The same thing had happened with his sons and his other grandchildren. Linda had taken so long to get to this point, and yet she still adored him. He’d had someone love him like this before, working hard to continue to do so and trust him despite their growing mistrust. Maybe it wouldn’t be too difficult to right the ship, as it were.

Ah! He had just the solution.

“How about I tell you about a _fun_ secret?”

No child could resist the allure of being let in on a secret. Especially not this curious little girl that scraped her knees and stained her dress as she explored the world, overturning every rock and leaf. Linda slowly melted against him, relaxing in his hold and no longer fighting him as he cradled her against his chest. “Okay, papa,” she whispered. “I love you.”

“I know, princess. And that’s why I’m going to show you this.”

It roused slowly, quietly purring to life, boiling just under his skin, before it roared. It hissed through his veins like a match to acetone. Bidden, the inky black magic sprang to his fingertips as he snapped his fingers. Gesturing with broad strokes, he dragged the ink through the air.

First the horns. The body and the big, gloved hands. The arms and legs were crisp sweeps, to keep them simple and workable. And then, the final piece. He gave his fresh Bendy a nice broad grin to match his own.

Angling his voice to a higher pitch, he squeaked, “Howdy folks!” 

Linda giggled, perhaps at Bendy or at Henry’s falsetto. Either way, he then drew a crown over the figure and adorned it with a tutu. He allowed it to dance for a few moments longer, basking in the admiration and amazement in his granddaughter’s expression. 

He had missed that starry eyed sense of wonder, he had to admit. Yet another thing Joey Drew had taken from him. With a flourish and a scowl, he drew an anvil over its head. It fell with a shrill whistle.

Splat.

Ink dripped down to the floor, seeping between the cracks and soaking into the wood. He’d deal with that later. His attention was more focused on his little princess, who was no longer at risk of bursting into tears and instead still staring with mouth agape.

“How did you...?” Her gaze hadn’t left his fingers once. Dazed and starry eyed, she reached out for his hands. “Was that actual magic?”

“None of that now, princess,” he dodged her over-eager grabbing hands by tapping her nose instead. The black stain on his fingers clung to her. Well, he’d deal with that later too. “I’ll teach you some day.”

“Really? How? I want to learn _now_!”

Oh, children were so predictable. Paint a few pictures and accompany them with funny sounds and they turned to putty in even unskilled hands. Henry felt a niggling sense of frustration tainting his relief. This girl came of his blood. She should be better, smarter, more clever. As much as having her wrapped around his ink-stained finger made things easier, he’d been hopeful she would prove the exception to the rule. “But what about your daddy?”

She wiped off the half-dried black on her nose and studied the way it had flaked off on her hands. “He’d understand,” she said. “We’ll just tell him I wanted to go visit Grammy Linda. Dad never wants to talk about her, so he’d just go with it.”

Maybe she was more like him than it seemed.

Too quickly for him to mull over that thought, the door opened.

“Hey Linds, pops,” his son called, shaking off the rain from his coat sleeves in the doorway. “Hate to grab her and run, but the weather is only gonna get worse from here.”

Linda, little devil she was, squirmed out of his grip and tackled her dad in a hug. “Dad, no!” She cried, “It’s too dangerous to go outside! Let’s stay another night. You can sleep on the couch!”

His son met his gaze over her head, aiming for conspiratorial and falling just short of desperate. The boy always did take after his other relatives. “Can I now?” he joked. “What an honor. Unfortunately, your mother expects us home.”

“We’ll come home eventually,” Linda promised. “Please?”

“Sorry, honey. Now go run upstairs and grab your bag, okay?”

Her arms crossed and mouth snapping shut, she huffed and only just barely stomped the line between obedience and disrespect.

His son shook his head, graying hair clinging to his forehead in strands, and sighed, his whole body bending inwards. “Are all kids that attached to their grandparents?” he asked him.

Henry shrugged one shoulder. “I wouldn’t know,” he said, a little too coolly.

The other man winced, obviously misreading Henry’s disdain for him as the polite facade of a man reminded of his own dead parents. “Sorry, that was…” He shook his head again. “Anyway, you had a letter. It was taped to your door.”

He held it out to him, but Henry didn’t take it just yet.

Even waterlogged, ink bleeding and spreading across the soaked paper, he recognized that handwriting. Joey Drew. The return address was illegible, but his name was, by some unholy miracle, crisp as day. He grit his jaw before snatching it out of his son’s hands.

An awkward silence passed between them.

“Anyway,” the younger man cleared his throat. “Um.”

Henry just raised one brow.

Then Linda came back down stairs, her personal belongings shoved into her bulging bag, obviously without much care to wrinkles. “Are you sure, Dad?” she asked a final time.

“I’m sure it’s a very comfortable couch,” his youngest said, voice saccharine like Linda was a fool. “Hug papa good bye, honey, you’ll see him again soon.”

She didn’t need telling twice. Her whole body collided with his as she buried her face in his neck. Lowly, she whispered, “You promise Papa? You’ll show me?”

“Of course.”

Beaming now, she pulled out of the hug. “Thank you! Love you bunches!”

He followed them to the doorway at a sedate pace, watching his blood wander into the heavy sheets of rain, their hands and coat collars turned up to protect futilely against the force of nature. Waving with one hand, he gripped harder on the letter and hid it partially behind his back. The ink on his hands, drying now, clung to him like a second skin, all too tight.

_They will They will --_

Harsh whispers. Echos of the past, nothing more. No one, and nothing, was here with him. There was not hot air on his neck, or cold ooze on his shoulders. He was beyond such petty creatures’ hold.

_They will have it They will see it done They will fulfill Their bond They will They will --_

God damn Joey Drew, ruining things for Henry even now. Thirty years, and his shadow still dragged. 

Laughter crawled up his throat, pushing aside his own voice and breath. Henry bit a hole in his lip, iron on his tongue driving back a different tang.

_They will be paid They will be slaked They will feed--_

If he read the letter, would they stop coming? Would they leave him be? The postal service wasn’t at fault for the constant deliveries. The video footage of his doorbell also confirmed that whoever was delivering these nuisances wasn’t physically dropping them off. There was something at play here, of course there was, and maybe if he finally played along it would satisfy the annoyance. Dealing in logic with such things was a pipe-dream at best.

With a disgusted snort, he tossed the note to the table and brewed himself a fresh pot of coffee. Things involving Joey Drew were never a simple matter. It was likely going to be a long night and the taste would keep the ink out of his mouth. 

  
  



	2. Another Day Another Dollar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And there the building waited, like a dog by a war memorial, waiting to swallow him whole. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for violence and description of broken bone

Walking into the studio was like walking into a wall. Henry scrunched his nose in disgust at the heavy stench of rust, ink and dust clogging the stagnant air.

Typical. Soon as he left the studio in Joey’s hands, the fool went and wrecked it. As easy as Joey was to manipulate, he was an indelicate tool, with limited use and skill. In time, the man became a hindrance, and here was all the proof Henry needed to know he’d made the right choice in cutting ties when he had.

“Alright Joey,” he said into the abandoned workshop, glaring at Joey’s name on the wall. “Let’s see what you wanted me to find.”

It likely wasn’t even _Joey_ that had called him here, if he was being honest with himself. Joey never was useful as more than a convenient figurehead.

 _Look at what you’ve done_ , he thought. _Ruined our future, Drew, that’s all you did_. _Our dream, my ass._ Sneering amusement pulled his lips from his teeth, sharp and quick and hateful. At least the only name that went up in smoke was Joey’s own, like a projector reel caught on fire. He had managed to come out of this on top, let alone unscathed. 

Speaking of projectors… Grant would have a fit over the wasted electricity with that projector still running, assuming the man hadn’t offed himself in the time between Henry’s departure and now. The man had always been so delightfully easy to set off into a spiral, one way or another. 

All in all, it all looked almost like he’d left it, just dilapidated and abandoned to the disgrace of age. Bendy sketches and posters and cut outs covered nearly every available surface, Joey’s wall-mounted egoistic display churned away steadily, cabinets and shelves stood proudly, if crooked or half opened. So far so unremarkable.

There was no way this was it.

There had to be something bigger inside, hidden deeper below, something that had caused the buzz of noise and whispers to quiet in tangible anticipation. Where was the machine, come to think? The whole place reeked of ink and every available surface had the same disgusting film of ink and dust, and yet They had fallen remarkably silent.

If Joey had any brains in that vapid skull of his, the trap would be at Henry’s old desk.

Unsurprisingly, save for a stupid sketch he’d made some thirty odd years ago (why was it still there?) nothing was off about his desk. There were new pages on the wall, ones he never had a hand in but that didn’t carry Joey’s distinctively amateurish style, so obviously the desk hadn’t been in complete disuse since his departure. So why was it still there...?

A headache grew at his temples, fed by the clicking of the projector from the other room and his own mounting frustrations.

He gave Joey the best years of his life, slaving with his back bent over dancing devil after dancing devil. Storyboard after storyboard. Henry had poured his blood, sweat and tears into this damned cartoon, and what had he gotten in return? Certainly not his name on the wall. And, to further prove how valuable Henry had been to the company, Joey had obviously needed an entire _department_ of artists and animators just to do what Henry had been willing to do for only a reasonable price. A little recognition. A little freedom to do what he wanted and when without having to report to Joey like some sort of child. Cold cash in hand to make rent and buy himself and his girl the nice things they deserved.

Even down to the desks available to his replacements. Theirs were distinctly more aesthetically pleasing to be sure, sturdier. He could have had an office, rather than a secluded hallway. Yet another way Joey had fucked him over. Just because he could, he picked up a pen off the nearest desk and drew a caricature of the egomaniac himself, X eyes and all, in a blank corner. Then, realizing that the pen was actually of appreciable quality, he tucked it into his pocket. What was a little theft when there wasn’t anyone around to lay claim to it?

* * *

Further exploration proved interesting.

Who had written on the walls, and when and for what purpose? He himself knew he’d have done it to spite Joey, but he’d have gone with a much more scathing remark than to parrot the man’s ridiculous self-aggrandizing speeches. 

Oh, now there was a thought. Maybe _Joey_ was trapped here, wandering and driven mad. Wouldn’t that be a riot? And fully deserved, in so far as Henry was concerned. He let out a gentle sigh. A man could dream.

The pipes were leaking ink pretty heavily here and there though. He stepped carefully and did his best not to wonder about whether the buzzing was louder or quieter in its proximity. The flow of it implied that the machine still had a fair amount of ink left in her. Or maybe she’d been run not so long ago. Regardless of why, thirty years was a long time for a pipe to leak. Something was horribly off about this whole place, little snippets here and there seemingly plucked right from the day Henry walked out, and the rest as aged and weathered as could be expected.

The lift, however, worked just fine after he got the dry cells in place. Helpless against his own laughter, he grinned as he threw the switch. “Let’s see what you’ve been hiding down there,” he chuckled, “ _old friend.”_

Laboring and straining through the ceiling and the gears and mechanisms overhead, the chains groaned under their their prodigious burden. Oh, he knew better than most just how heavy secrets were, and this one in particular weighed enough for lifetimes. Heavy metal clacked together and cinched in place as they carried their prize toward the light.

Ah, there she was. Belching out steam and dripping in ink, glistening gears and pistons crawling to a stop. Was that his heartbeat in his ears? Never mind that. Thankfully, apparently Joey’s stupidity knew _some_ limits, because the ink machine was turned off.

Henry knew he had to wake her, rouse it from the slumber of the last three decades or so. He wiped his brow, rubbed his palms on his thighs, and swallowed rapidly, hoping to choke down the taste rising in his throat. Pressure built in his skull, pushing at the bony cage of his skull, and something cool dribbled down his back. Only a few steps later did he realize it was just his own cold sweat and that he was nervous.

Ridiculous. He’d dealt with the machine before. He’d dealt with Joey. He had already been a step ahead of every player in this game for years. What did he have to fear? Nothing.

Admittedly he had never had a hand in the actual operation of the machine, so staring at the flashing signs and standing in a room full of pedestals was hardly helpful. Yet further proof of how unsustainable this particular mixture of slipshod technology and pseudo-scientific superstition had been. Joey had had his uses, and his knowledge of the arcane had been one of them. Surely Joey had bragged about his ‘genius’ additions to the machine, hadn’t he?

Henry had become too accustomed to pretending to listen. Really, if Joey had just talked less, a normal person’s amount, he wouldn’t have had to learn to tune the man out to stay sane. Still, it meant he was left with a bunch of pictures of random objects, a pressure error -- what, so it had low fluid pressure but there was ink pouring out everywhere? What was he meant to do, plug up the holes in the pipes with duct tape and a dream? Nonsense.

There had to be another, more obvious solution. He stormed out of the dimly lit room and nearly tripped over a cut out that most certainly had not been there before.

_Not alone never alone lonely never never_

But the question remained _who_ had put it there. Some sort of manifestation? Someone actually in the workshop with him? Henry kept his gaze locked on the cut out, watching to see if it would track him with its pie cut eyes, but it remained frustratingly static.

Stumbling over the threshold to the room, he righted himself against the doorway. It smelled horribly of ink. More so than the rest of the place. The lights here flickered, beckoning him closer, demanding he stare in wonder and horror at the cleaved open and picked clean rib-cage on display. In the center of the display sat a wrench, gore coated and glistening with ink, nestled. It was like the corpse had bloomed and was there for the plucking was his prize.

So Joey had continued to work with the ink machine. Well, _obviously_ he had, there was no other explanation, but after all those bitter arguments and fights and all his crocodile tears about wanting to stop, it rang even more hollow. Though the unhinged question on the wall did point to Joey having lost his marbles.

Joey truly was pathetic. No small part of Henry hoped that Joey had been conscious enough of himself to realize how far he fell without Henry there to push him. He wanted Joey to _burn_ and rot away inside knowing that Henry had been right every single time he pointed out Joey’s incompetency and ineptitude. There was no need for further proof than the disrepair of the workshop and the bankruptcy of the business, but this left a delectable aftertaste.

If Joey was still alive, he was probably half mad with grief by now and maybe had learnt his lesson about undervaluing Henry. Either way, it was obvious Joey had been humbled, something he desperately needed.

* * *

  


In the last days of his employment at Joey Drew Studios, Henry and Joey constantly fought. Henry was hardly unreasonable, wanting to spend time with his family or else be compensated for being dragged away from his life. Joey was, as ever, lackadaisical about the time and effort that went into animating a short.

The shorter man sat back in his chair, balancing precariously on two legs and only partially facing Henry, one arm thrown over the back of the chair for a better angle. He held the book aloft in his other hand, paused on a page with a pentagram as he spoke.

“Really Henry, you think Linda couldn’t stand to be without you for a few more hours? We do have a deadline.” He snorted dismissively. It was incredibly unattractive and exaggerated his hawk like nose. “Besides, I’d wager that _our dream_ should be more important to you than her.”

Just when he thought Joey couldn’t get any uglier and self-absorbed, he found a new low. Henry barked, “’Our dream’ is nothing more than your ego project. And I’m sick of breaking my back over it.”

“That’s unkind and inaccurate, Henry, and you are very well aware of that.”

He crossed his arms. With the angle and their postures exaggerating the height difference, he relished in the chance to glare down his nose at Joey.“When’s the last time you balanced the books without me needing to double check your math? When you didn’t make more work?”

“Now, Henry--”

“Who actually draws the animation?”

“I storyboard--”

“Whose name is that on that diploma over there?”

On cue, Joey, college drop out, whipped his gaze to the framed degree on the wall, proudly declaring Henry a successful college graduate, a business major no less. Taking advantage, he nudged the chair leg ever so slightly--

Joey crashed to the ground with a shrill yelp and a sharp crack.

Though it was too late for the smaller man’s arm, wrist already swelling and shoulder distinctly misshapen, Henry hurriedly righted the chair and the man in it.

“Henry?” Joey whispered. His voice was small and frail, as if he were speaking from a great height and about to fall to earth a second time. “My, my arm, it’s... Oh _God_.”

He wasn’t so sure yet if he was glad that the man hadn’t busted his dominant arm. That would remain to be seen. Allowing Joey his whimpers and self pity, Henry grabbed him bodily and popped the dislocated joint right back into place with a bit of finesse and force.

Sweat shone on Joey’s brow and he panted like a dying dog. “Warn me!” he demanded.

“You’re always getting yourself into messes,” he said instead of gracing his ingratitude with a proper response. Lowly, he added, “You’re lucky I was there.”

The joint of his wrist wasn’t a simple dislocation however. It was likely broken, if the rapid swelling and immediate bruising was any indication, but he wasn’t a doctor. He hadn’t exactly planned to be splinting a broken bone tonight, but Joey had thrown a wrench into his plans for the night since the moment he decided the storyboard for the latest cartoon wasn’t bouncy enough. Smirking, Henry wondered if the way his whole body had jumped when he hit the floor had been bouncy enough for him.

After a long, long silence in which Henry half carried, half dragged the dazed moron out of the office and toward the infirmary, finally Joey seemed to remember social mores and mumbled a paltry thanks.

“I told you not to lean back in your chair like that.”

“You know me…” Joey let out a choked, breathless wheeze as he struggled to keep up with Henry and his longer-legged stride while also maintaining his usual chatter. “Always acting contrary. You’d think I’d been replaced if I just jumped up and danced to someone else’s tune. Could you imagine if I didn’t give you a little push back every so often?”

He fought the urge to roll his eyes. The injury was to his arm, not his head or his mouth, unfortunately. “We’ll both go home,” he decided for them both, cutting off Joey’s blather. “You can finish up your contribution to the storyboard _after_ we get a splint on that wrist of yours.”

“Yes, mother-hen-ry.”

“I _hate_ when you call me that.” 

* * *

Henry snapped out of his memories and grabbed the wrench. At the very least, he could use it as a weapon or to tight up any bolts, if the low pressure was due to valve issues. Tom had always sworn by his own wrench, kept it on his person at all times because he rarely came across a situation not improved by its use. 

Time to go hunting for how to turn on the machine.


	3. It's Backbreaking Work

There were six items to gather up to satisfy Joey’s ridiculous little machine. The first five were easy enough because, helpfully, there were portraits of the corresponding items. A gear, a spanner, a doll, a record, and Joey’s second ego project bound in leather and titled something pretentious. If Henry wasn’t certain that he needed all the pages, he was half tempted to just rip the thing to shreds there and then. He had always thought of Joey’s note-taking as an annoying habit, but Joey had thought it marked him as an intelligent man. Boo for him, you could only put so much make up on a pig and a dunce could only bullshit his way through life so much. 

The last one, the ink, stumped him.

Ink? The machine needed ink to work, of course it did, but he was currently trying to get the ink flowing. Why would it need any extra? Perhaps it was to do with the pressure, but when he attempted to turn the valve, and he wasn’t a weak man, it refused to budge. There was no way that all the leaking ink everywhere that hadn’t even slowed in the time he’d spent here was the cause. It had obviously leaked very steadily for the last three decades, with hundreds of gallons a week pumped into its storage for who knows how long. That wasn’t the cause. 

Henry didn’t particularly care for the thought of getting ink all over his hands, but it was looking to be inevitable that he would have to dirty them. 

At first he tried getting the ink to obey him, but it was like corralling a waterfall, even the smallest pools of spilled ink. They bucked his will and each scattered under his touch, countless beads rolling away and seeping into the floorboards like a broken thermometer he'd dropped once as a child, mercury running everywhere. So that was a failure. 

Then he tried placing the pen he appropriated on the pedestal. He tried pouring the ink out of the pen and succeeded only in covering the pedestal. Between drips as the overflow hit the floor, he heard Their laughter. 

“Shut up,” he hissed, then flinched. He hadn’t made such a rookie mistake in years! He held his breath and waited. The ink whispered, thrumming through the piping, and the floor underneath creaked with even the slightest shift in his weight, but no chill curled around his wrists or ankles or up his shirt. 

Luckily, nothing happened, several long moments dragged by silently, and he felt comfortable enough to continue searching for the solution. 

* * *

His inkwell. God, how simple and painfully _stupid_. And of course Joey took his blasted ink well. The one Linda had given him as a gift early on. No wonder he hadn't been able to find it when he finally packed up and quit his position here. 

“Lost,” his ass. Joey Drew, the liar. What a surprise. He should have known better to have assumed Joey had limits to his scumminess. He already knew that Joey Drew took, took, took and never gave back. What was yet another thing Joey stole from him?

That said, the machine purred and clanged and roared to life, things swimming through the walls and pipes and whispering and cackling. They were awake. _Wide_ awake. They had to remember what he had done, They had not shut up for the past thirty years over it. He held back a snarl of frustration. If they would just get over themselves and be content with snacking on the studio, he would be golden. But no, They had to demand far more than he ever was willing to give. 

He sneered at that thought. Perhaps Joey and Them had plenty in common to discuss then. 

The moving cut outs were worrisome, the more he thought about it. Something was in in this place with him, possibly more than just Them. He could no longer ignore it - not only They were toying with him, but he was possibly not alone. Thirty years of relative peace, and he undid it by stepping foot inside this hellish studio. What else was in here?

Was it Them though? Or was it Joey, or maybe Wally? Wally always had a habit of pranks and being precisely where he shouldn’t have been. And if he didn’t already know better, he would have assumed perhaps Norman. 

Henry had a sinking suspicion about all the ink everywhere, admittedly. It seemed their final ritual had never actually been finalized. It would also explain why They were so loud here. Joey had never cleaned up, not fully. He had seen the additions since his departure and assumed that meant Joey had managed to keep the ship from sinking immediately, but maybe not. Really, that was hardly a shock. After all, Henry had always had the business sense. 

“Look at you and your precious machine,” Henry mocked in the abrupt darkness, because he felt eyes and other things on him. “Can’t even keep a few holes plugged. Pathetic. What did you _do_ anyway? This thing never drew so much power. Must be old wiring. No possible way you made the ink machine even more powerful.”

Hm, that wasn't fair. Maybe Joey hadn't. But maybe They did. Henry paused. He had seen how disjointed, like a marionette, that Sammy had walked shortly after they performed the ritual to keep his body from melting. Maybe Joey had been overwritten, erased, the shattered bits of his body reformed by ink and metal and forced to wander about like some sort of ersatz. It was hardly like Joey had still been fully human the last time Henry had seen him. Maybe They had, as Joey, upgraded Their machine. 

He continued through the darkness, searching out the machine once more. The machine was alive and waiting. He just needed to figure out how to destroy Their connection and then he could go home. 

There were boards on the inside blocking his progress though. Did something emerge from the machine and board up the door? The last thing that spurted out of the ink machine like afterbirth looked like afterbirth. 

A disgusting freak of nature. At least he and Joey had agreed on that front. They had both been unnerved by the thing’s appearance, the smile unending. The shambling walk. Come to think, that horrible gait of it matched Sammy’s immediately following his inking, hadn’t it?

A hand swiping at his face— no not a hand, ink, a claw—

Henry jerked back, stumbling over his own two feet as ink pooled around his ankles. Again. 

Again. He bolted. Panting, gasping for air, iron and dust and ink clinging to his tongue, burning and he raced through the halls. Where was the exit? It was dark. He should have seen the sign—

Left. He lurched, threw his whole body down the hall, pinwheeling his arms to keep upright as ink poured from the walls, the ceiling, pools sloshing with each heavy footfall. 

* * *

Joey fidgeted. A darkness passed over his expression, the very same doubt that Henry had been seeing far too much of these days. The loss in trust. It was infuriating. It was why he so much preferred Linda. At least she committed. At least she knew what she wanted and actually put forth appropriate efforts to get it. Joey just coasted by with too big dreams and expected the rest of the world to catch up with his plans and make up the difference with their efforts. Case in point, the more Henry withdrew from the business, the more he focused on his own needs, the more the company floundered. It was pathetic, really. 

“What?” Henry asked, forcing his tone to remain light and free of all signs of his frustration. “I thought you were on board with our dream?”

“Henry,” Joey started, then shut his mouth, pursing his lips. “I just don’t believe this is the appropriate course of action.”

“Believe in me,” Henry suggested. Then, to seal it, to crush that wavering doubt and mistrust thoroughly, he held Joey’s face in his hands, forcing their gazes to meet. His thumb brushed over Joey’s lower lip, a tease of what could be if Joey simply behaved and did as Henry wanted. “Believe in _us_.”

Joey’s brown eyes, burnished bronze, darkened by the ink in his veins these days, glowed once more with belief and foolish trust. 

Henry would have laughed at how gullible the smaller man was if only it were not so convenient for his purposes. Joey really was an idiot. At least it was useful. Like hell would Henry put himself through half the dangerous experimentation that had left Joey more ink than human. 

“Right then, I suppose it’s for the best,” Joey agreed. “Yet I have my reservations. Alison disappeared during our attempt. Possibly even consumed by Them. We need contingencies in place provided we are unsuccessful.”

So many words, wasted breath only because the speaker loved to hear himself speak. 

“Leave that to me,” Henry said, moving his hand to Joey’s lower back and preempting more word vomit from the man. Bone pressed against his hand, the ridges of Joey’s spine and the cut of his hipbones and pelvis obvious even through the fabric. He hid his smirk and decidedly did not think about how it felt to pin the thin man down, to feel bone and chill flesh under his touch, to be able to hold both wrists in one hand, to wrap both hands around his waist, thumbs pressing against the hollow cave formed by his ribs. If nothing else, Joey was _useful._ That was one thing he would miss, that Linda would not give. The control. 

They walked into the room like that, Henry’s hand only just above salacious, Joey’s head held high as if the book in his hand and the magic in his veins meant he was worth anything more than what Henry had already made of him.

Susie stood there, in the center of the ritual circle, and the mushy remains of what became of Norman gurgled next to her. The light from the projector flickered as Joey walked past the beam. Her face drooped, cheek rent open by the natural stress of an ink body in the real world. Her halo had come off, fallen away at some point. She was more likely to terrify their audience than entertain at this rate. 

“Susie, Joey and I were talking. He doesn’t think it’s a good idea to risk this,” Henry explained, “but he’s agreed to try. For my sake.”

“For _your_ sake?” Susie hissed.

Joey stopped just short of gaping at Henry, his smile no less wide for the betrayal.

“ _I_ \-- I mean, _we_ , know you are the voice of Alice, so we should do our best to keep you. But, you know how these things are. We have to cover our bases, in case everything doesn’t work out, in case we have to cut our losses with you.” He smiled at her. “But I’m sure Joey will still honor your contract.”

“What?!” Susie raged. She rushed to grab Joey by the collar, lifting him off his feet. “You _liar_!”

Choking, fabric pressed against his windpipe, Joey clawed at Susie’s hands, ink coming away under his nails. 

“I _trusted you_!” Susie slammed him against the wall. Joey choked and gasped, blackish red fluid spraying from his lips. “You promised me you could fix me! Make me perfect!”

Henry forgot how fragile Joey was these days. He sat back for a moment. Would it be worth it? Unfortunately, yes. He gripped Susie’s wrist tightly, crushing her inky bones under superior force. “Hold on now,” he cautioned, voice low and gravely. “Joey is going to fix you. Or die trying.”

“He better,” she hissed, not yet releasing her grip despite Henry literally crushing her wrist. Ink dripped down to the floor and began beading toward the lump of Norman. Was that a reel imbedded in the ink? That hadn’t been there before. 

“Susie,” Henry said lowly, watching Joey’s face turn increasingly darker shades of crimson. He himself had choked Joey before, witnessed the same discoloring of his cheeks and throat, and frankly it was interesting to see that Susie, small thing that she was, could put enough pressure on Joey’s windpipe to matter.

More than matter.

Joey’s eyes were rolling up in his skull. Damn it.

As always, he was forced to intervene and keep Joey from getting killed over his ego, or ruining _both_ their plans over his ego. “Come on, Susie,” Henry reminded her. “He needs to be alive to help you. I don’t agree with replacing you and I would never let Joey do that to you. I already know that using the ink will fix you. And Norman there is like an endless source of it”

Susie snarled, wild, feral, and threw Joey to the ground, where he proceeded to hack up a lung and half a pint of ink. “He better,” she snarled at him. “Or I’ll show you how much of an angel I really am.”

Henry suppressed an eye roll and gestured for her to rejoin the pentagram again. “Go on,” he said. “Joey appears to need a minute.”

Susie’s jaw had melted further in her rage. Daintily wiping at the ink dribbling from her misshapen lips, she turned on her heel and returned to stand beside Norman. How many reels were in the ink? How had more metal accumulated? 

No. No matter. Asking questions was Joey’s wheelhouse and answers caused more problems than they were worth. Whatever was up with Norman, it would provide the necessary raw material so they would not need another living sacrifice.

“Always with the melodramatics,” Henry chided Joey as he knelt beside him, rubbing his back, relishing in each bump and hard edge of bone. He was just so small and breakable. It was adorable. A shame the man was so intractable otherwise. “Gosh, Joey, get over yourself here. This is about Susie, not you.” 

“She tried to--” Joey cut off with another cough. 

“She could have crushed your throat in an instant,” he dismissed with a handwave. “Get over yourself already. It’s time to do the ritual.”

Still frowning, like a petulant child, Joey rubbed at his throat. “Fine,” he spat, glaring at him. “Retrieve the knife then.”

He smirked and gripped the back of Joey’s neck, thumb pressed against the latest sore spot. “Of course, since you asked so _nicely_. Remember your manners, Joey. You’re not a caveman.”

“Right,” Joey said, snorting. The expression exaggerated his hawkish nose. What an unattractive feature, something he’d reminded the thinner man of constantly. Henry reminded him again, thumb digging into the cartilage of his windpipe as a warning. Joey’s ugly laughter cut off abruptly. “Of course,” he rasped. “Let us proceed.”

On cue, Henry eased up the pressure and allowed Joey to stand once more while he went to grab the requested knife. 

The ritual started out smoothly enough. Joey carved the appropriate symbols into the floor at each point of the painted pentagram, each groove filled with his strange blackish red blood. If Henry watched him work for too long, the strange runes stopped their wavering and solidified into something perhaps legible, in another life, through another lens. It was terrifying. Whenever he blinked, they reverted back to incomprehensible squiggles. Since when did Norman have a full left arm? 

Then Joey made a mistake somewhere. Misspoke or poured out too little blood or did something wrong, and suddenly the room was upended. And _They_ flooded in.

You could never see them, not appropriately, but Henry knew enough to know where they weren’t, and they weren’t not there, and they weren’t not grasping for his legs. 

Henry raced for the door, throwing himself against it when it turned out to be locked. Who was the genius that locked the door? He slammed his shoulder into the door near the latch. That had to be the weakest point. Right? He kicked at the space next to the knob, succeeding only in shooting pain up his leg. 

Susie just kept screaming. Her shrill shrieking likely only attracted more of Them. Her voice ripped as something tore open her face and throat— and yet she kept screaming, until ink surged up around her legs and dragged her down through the floors. The projector’s light swam and wavered before going fully dark.

All that remained in the pentagram with a puddle of bubbling ink, glowing faintly. 

He did not dare look back again. Henry hurled himself against the door again. Wood splintered, bowing, buckling but not giving just yet. Damn it. 

Hands gripped his arm. He jerked around to face whoever dared and met Joey’s terrified gaze. 

“Help us,” Joey begged, “you can’t run!”

“Like hell I will,” Henry promised. 

He grabbed hold of Joey’s shoulder, comfortingly tight, and smiled at him when the other man started to relax slightly in his grasp, trust radiating from his posture. “I need you to hold the--”

With his other hand, he punched the man in the face. Oh how he had wanted to do that for a while. Joey staggered back, reeling from the blow, hand fisting in his shirtsleeve. They weren’t not around his feet.

No. He had not come this far to be dragged down with him. He slammed him into the floorboards with a tidal wave of ink. It all came so easily, his magic boiling under his skin with Them slavering and slathering about them. He felt, more than heard, Joey’s body _break_ in half under the weight of the ink. There went his spine. Henry moved the ink further down, rolling it down his hips and ignoring the way Joey started screaming, hoarse, because he would not permit Joey to get in the way of his escape. 

In a stroke of good fortune, though he was practically bubbling with magic, They went after Joey. Henry threw himself at the door a final time, wood coming apart finally, door shattering and swinging off the hinge. They didn’t not nip at his heels, some of Them, and he ran even faster. His lungs felt too small for his chest, his legs like running through the ocean, borne back against the tide. 

No, that was the ink around his ankles. It sucked at his shoes, trying to hold him in place, to drag him back to the depths. The floor underneath began to give under his footfalls. Reality turned soggy and far too malleable. Something clawed up his pant legs, clinging wetly to his shins. Ink. Only ink. He prayed it was ink. 

The exit sign ahead glowed like a beacon. 

Henry ripped open the door and stumbled out onto the streets into the sunlight and _gasped_ like a landed fish. Bent over and giving no shits about any odd looks he received, he braced himself on his knees and struggled to breathe.

Behind him, the door swung shut and They howled in the confines of Their self-made prison. 

“Damn straight,” Henry gasped. “That’s what you deserve.”

Another smattering of odd looks. He probably looked like a mess. Henry wiped at his cheeks and the ink he found there. No matter. Once he got home, he could get cleaned up, take a nice shower, and kiss his pretty wife senseless. 

He had his whole life ahead of him now. Provided he never stepped foot on these grounds again, he was golden. Out of curiosity, Henry tested his pool of magic and was surprised when it surged to attention without much effort. 

Oh was this not a delight, or what? He cautiously forced his magic to form and dance between his fingers, shooting sparks off right in front of the door. They still didn’t escape through any crack or crevice to come snatch it away. 

Henry threw his head back and laughed, sick with relief, before starting home. His investment in the business ended today. For all intents and purposes, his losses were cut and at a minimum. He had his whole life ahead of him, and he was about to go and live it without the shadow of Joey Drew hanging over him anymore.

* * *

He fell.

* * *

So much for not getting covered in ink. 

Damn Joey for continuing to be a nuisance even after all these years. Ink covered, sore and still trying to regain his breathing, he descended deeper. Why was the studio so big? How much building was there to go? This didn’t make sense. The ink, it had to have warped something. Turned reality upside down on itself, inverted and stretched out like caramel. He had chalked up the sensations he felt to drying ink on his skin, but maybe not. Maybe the tightness and chill he felt on the surface of his flesh was something else entirely. 

Fuck. The ax fit in his palm like it was made for him though. A few practice swings later, he had splintered about half a dozen boards and started forming some blisters on his palms and thumbs. Where was this when he had needed to escape? At least it would come in handy now, now that he found it.

He stumbled upon _the_ room. The ritual room. In the wrong place. The ink had reshaped the building, there was no other explanation. This was not where they had been. He shivered. Was Susie still here, or some puddle amalgamation of Norman? Joey?

“Joey?”

He hefted the ax once more. The door was gone, shattered to smithereens by his escape before and, really, what did he have to fear of a summoning circle that he hadn’t already faced and escaped?

“You really let this place go, Joey,” Henry called. “You should have swallowed your pride and let me fix things instead of fighting me all the time.”

His voice didn’t even echo, the sound swallowed by ink. The only thing he could hear, for once, was the distant dripping of ink. Faint sloshing as the ink he displaced by trudging through settled back to its even level. Silence was either very bad, or a step in the right direction. Henry stepped forward.

_Pushing push twisted reaching begging slipping cold dark staggering legs buckling trials attempt attempt attempt remade in glory, push, no no please_

They were more disjointed than ever and _begging_ him. “Oh shut up,” he laughed, then everything went dark.


	4. Lighter Side of Hell

_Sammy, when he was a child, went by Sam, and he went to church._

Arms raised up in supplication, Sammy, the prophet of his inky lord Bendy, gestured grandly overhead, all eyes and attention to the depth of their position. Deep, dark, far from the surface and far from natural lighting and fresh air and freedom; this was their home now. It, and they, belonged to Bendy. The river before and beneath them babbled and spoke gibberish under the dock. A dozen of his flock surrounded him, hanging on his every word, some merely lumps of ink with what could be mistaken for eyes, others nearly humanoid, heads propped up on their hands as they stared at him. All patiently awaiting his words. 

A far cry to the inattentiveness of earlier days. In time, he had proven his worth as the speaker for their savior, had earned those adoring, slightly fearful, awesome looks. It was only fitting, considering for whom he spoke and acted.

_His mother and father weren’t particularly religious people. They had been desperate for children of their own and perhaps felt some modicum of obligation when Sammy was the first of their children to survive past the second trimester. They went to church, Mrs. Lawrence’s dress straining to contain the swell of life, Mr. Lawrence hiding the scent of alcohol on his breath with hastily chewed mint leaves from their herb garden. **They went to church.** _

“There is no want of power in our Lord to cast non-believers into the puddles at any moment,” Sammy warned, sharp. He lifted his hands again, displayed the semi solidity of his digits. “Our hands can't be strong when the Lord rises up: the strongest have no power to resist him, nor can any deliver out of his hands.”

_Sammy was baptised, not that he would ever recall it, nor would his parents admit to it. By the time of Johnny’s birth, his parents had nearly entirely disengaged from the church and so Sammy lost the opportunity to witness a baptism, to see what he had underwent at his parents’ insistence, to know how and why his parents had promised to raise him in accordance to Christian ideals, that they had promised his soul long before he knew what the concept entailed. **Sammy’s soul always belonged to something greater than him.** _

“He is not only able to cast the faithless into the ink, but he can most easily do it. There is no fortress that is any defence against the power of Bendy.”

_He wanted to understand and to appreciate that his soul had been reserved for God, and yet, dragged by the arm from one town to the next, whispers following, questions about his confirmation and his own inability to grasp what was asked let alone answer them, he found himself adrift. Questions about God were met with hissed rejection. Perhaps they feared their lack of belief would kill the new life growing within Mrs. Lawrence’s belly, or perhaps they were discomforted in continuing to lie about having faith when they did not believe. **Non-believers were punished.** _

“We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth.” 

He paused to gauge their reactions. Some nodded what they had left of their heads. Others continued to stare blankly. A few murmured, their voice joining the babble of the ink below. 

_Perhaps his own belief was born of similarly hollow intentions. They had wanted children, and he wanted understanding. Sam stole the Bible and a hymnal from the pew one of the last few weeks he attended church, a sacrilegious act by any measure. He was perhaps eight at the time, and no matter how often they moved, how often his mother stormed in during the middle of the night and woke he and his younger brother demanding they pack quickly, he kept hold of the stolen texts. He would do anything in the name of his lord, even if the lord seemed incomprehensible to him, even if the act seemed reprehensible to him._

“Therefore it is _easy_ for us to cut or singe a slender thread that any thing hangs by,” Sammy explained, and did not glare at the searcher whose gurgling had turned dismissive. 

_It helped that neither his mother nor his father remained at home- however temporary that home was, before they were forced to leave under cover of darkness, the echo of bill collectors’ knocks clear in their ears as they went. In the long, silent hours spent waiting for either of his parents to return from work or networking parties, waiting for the glass after glass of water he downed to mask the twinge and aching of an empty stomach, he read the Bible. Forwards, backwards, he knew the words by route memory and he could still recall the vibrant speeches and sermons of the minister of his childhood, and only, church. Yet, there was a hollow not born of earthly hunger. He wanted to know, to grasp at the ideal dangled before his eyes, to understand to what he had been promised without his sayso. **Sammy knew hunger and knew it well, but his soul starved.**_

“Thus easy is it for the Lord, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to the ink. Only the _worthy_ will be set free.”

_Sammy had a beautiful singing voice. He always had and he had been lucky enough not to lose the slightly angelic quality even as puberty snapped his voice in half and plunged it several octaves lower. When the Lawrence family remained in a city long enough for Sammy’s skill to be noticed, he was inevitably shanghaied to join the chorus and, as was equally inevitable, a hymn or song dedicated to the Lord arose, and his whole body itched with the knowledge of the worn leather book hidden under his mattress. It burned more fervently with a desire to sing anything else but. To gather together dulcet tones and pace them and arrange them so they soothed the ravaged soul, eased tense muscles and brought joy to the mirthless._

The Lord’s arrival was heralded by no thunder or fanfare. Reality became loose and slippery, every long forgotten or ignored heartbeat pulsing now in unison with the lord’s. His flock trembled, quaked and quivered before the might of the lord. While before he stood tall among them, he stood taller now, the only one of the crowd not to cower. 

_The violin first. Then the harmonica. Then the organ, with his younger brother on his lap as he taught him as well, first as a means to distract him from the empty ice box and then as an effort to raise his spirits as he was getting far too old to be placated with sweet words. Then the banjo, as a dare, because how dare anyone underestimate his dedication? If he didn’t know yet, he would learn, it was as simple as that. He would learn in the darkest hours of the night how to read sheet music and he would sneak off from lesser classes to perfect his craft. He poured every fiber of his being into creating, that which wasn’t stolen up by parents who were so desperate for a baby but not willing to remain for the whole of raising it, and a baptism he still couldn’t understand his emotions toward. He wrote down bars of music in the margins of notes, across the tops of papers, hummed every refrain as it came to mind as he worked too many hours at a factory than a young man should just to keep a roof over their heads._

“Shhhhh, be not afraid,” Sammy soothed. “Our lord approaches.” 

The earlier gurgling searcher with the dismissive noises gave a keen, sharp whine of fear. 

“Shh!” he hissed. The searcher huddled into the pulsing mass of the flock, ink rippling as the world quaked. The air thickened and bore down upon them. Even Sammy could feel the ink dripping off him, trickling down his back. 

_Sammy was seventeen, and Johnny was nine, when his mother stormed into the apartment and began upending furniture. She demanded his money, demanded he repay her and their father for all that they sacrificed, and Sammy laughed in her face because they had sacrificed_ nothing, _not smoking, not partying, not their previous lifestyle, and when it proved untenable with two children waiting at home, tired and hungry, they continued without a care._

“Take heart, sheep,” Sammy ordered, “or our lord will take yours.”

_At seventeen, Sammy lost all pretense of not being his younger brother’s father. At seventeen, he took Johnny and stepped up where his parents had refused to and found a new life. A new home, a new city, a new job. His musical talent carried him further than he had expected it to, kept a roof over their head and something on the table when it felt impossible, when his wages were cut and garnished by an avaricious asshole, when he lost his temper and his control over his stress and had to find another job. Sammy was seventeen and trying to raise his younger brother and the older Johnny became the harder it was to answer his questions, to explain why he was the better option as opposed to their parents who did not have time in their social schedules for children. He envied the minister who once told him the lord worked in mysterious ways._

Everything snapped. The inexorable beat cut away, a caesura. The air in their lungs was clean, pure. The lord had left, had not graced with his presence and certainly no favors. They were unworthy of such a gift yet.

_Sheets of music earned him praise and medals and, years later, after meeting Stein and Drew, a salary. Johnny’s skill as an organist and Sammy’s insistence earned his young brother a salary as well. The road was long and dark, but Joey Drew Studios held the promise of “more” that he had hoped to find in stained glass and pews. **Ink became his holy water, his communion.**_

Sammy strained to hear any further sound from the lord. It would not be the first time in his infinite wisdom, beyond the scope of man, that he appeared to come and go as he pleased, only to appear before the congregation. But, no. Not today. The lord moved and showed himself at his own discretion, and it was up to man to bear the whims.

His sermon would continue. He demanded, “What are we, that we should think to stand before him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and before whom the rocks are thrown down!"

_The lord giveth, and the lord taketh away. The ink giveth, and the ink taketh away. His sanctuary collapsed. Lives were lost, drowned in ink, crushed by pipes, metal and wood, and the lord certainly worked in mysterious ways, because Sammy could not see any reason to cut short his brother’s life. His orchestra, those who looked to him for guidance through the crescendo, the swell, the fortissimo and pianissimo in equal measure, looked to him once more._

They fled. Scattered. Rage, white hot and pure like holy fire, built up inside him. They dared to flee from the lord’s presence? They did not deserve the honor of Bendy’s proximity, and certainly not his countenance and absolutely not his mercies. They were dissillute and weak, even with Sammy to lead them.

_Sammy was not a man of faith. The child he had been, was not faithful. He tried all the same. At first it felt weak and hollow, mimicking the speech patterns of the minister, exhorting patience and perseverance as between one moment and the next, dozens disappeared, as families were rent apart. At first, there was no balance. No interplay of what he had read and listened to as a boy mingling with the current tragedy bearing down upon their heads. Sammy learnt many things in life, some skills useless, some without reason save for passing fancy, but he learnt and he did so quickly. And he learnt, in time, how to play his congregation like an instrument to please his lord._

Sammy was not sure of the name of this one. This searcher. 

“The Lord will come,” he assured them. 

The lord took from them their legs, yet gave them powerful arms in return and a world to explore. He took from them their name, gave them new purpose, in his infinite mercy. The lord took from them their eyes, but only so they could better see without being blinded and distracted.

Or something. 

He drew back his leg and punted the searcher into the river. 

“Maybe not for _you_ , little sheep.”

Sammy knew how to tune his instrument, after all, and a sour note only made discordant music.

* * *

Bertrum sat through the pulsing with barely restrained fury. He knew what the sounds and sensations meant, had felt the very same creeping up behind him before too strong hands found the back of his skull and _pressed._

It was almost funny. He used to complain that the inner workings of his masterpieces were delicate and needed a professional hand, not some layabouts who barely knew their way about a wrench. He needn’t have bothered.

The gears had not stopped, even when flesh and bone caught and tore away. Not when blood and motor oil had filled his mouth. Not when--

A searcher pawing his cart snapped his attention to the present. 

Jerking back, Bertrum swung the arm of the whipper-willow in an arc and only felt slightly bad for sending the poor ink creature into the wall. 

“Jeez, Bert, ease up a bit.”

Lowering the cart and opening the bar for the animatronic, he sighed. “Hello, Ms. Benton.” 

Rolling her head in an approximation of her usual sardonic eye roll, Lacie clambered up and settled in the seat. “Hello, Mr. Piemont.”

He huffed in exaggerated affront to hide his amusement. “Fine, then, _Lacie_ , to what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked her. 

She ran her remaining arm across the bar. The contact was gentle and would have sent shivers up his spine if he still had a nervous system, let alone a spine. The ink within his chassis warmed all the same. “Bert, walking around innit what it used to be,” she said instead of answering. 

“I wouldn’t know,” he deadpanned.

“Still. Got gunk in my joints again and I just cleaned them out.”

“Bacon soup. It’s surprisingly effective.”

“What? You want me to pour _more_ ink on me? I’m more metal than you are these days, Bert, who knows what it’d do to me.”

He hummed and started spinning the arms of the machine-- of his body. Her grip on his bar tightened, but even though there was great strength in her new limbs, she did not come close to hurting him. 

“Hey, Bert are you listening?” Lacie waved her stump in his direction, sparks and ink flying off and hitting his paneling. “C’mon bossman, innit the time for rides here.”

“A Boris threw a can of soup at the Projectionist and it became wedged.”

Lacie immediately went still. “Shit. Oh fucking shit, why didn’t you call me _then?_ Shit, what was the Projectionist even-- Bert, you need me to crawl in and get it out or--”

“No need, Benton,” he reassured her. “Truly!”

Slowly, she eased back into the seat. “Alright… Go on, then.”

“The metal was crushed easily. The gears are quite good at that. However, the intention of my tale was not to cause undue worry. In fact,” Bertrum paused and shook the arm in question, the cart on it moving effortlessly without even a hint of clog or rusting. “I would say it has well lubricated my joint.”

“Ugh, please don’t use _lubricate_ when talking about your body.” She tilted her voice up in a rather rough approximation of his subtle accent, sounding more like she was gargling potatoes than affecting an accent. “I mean, I get it, you are the mechanical man now and all but. Yeesh.”

“Would you rather I discussed how the big bad wolf _oiled_ me up, loosened aches _deep_ inside me, how he made me feel boneless and shaky for days after? It was such a delicious release, all my stress washing away.”

Lacie buried her face in her hand. “You are a _child_ ,” she cried, though laughter glitched in her voice. “Gross! You are one dirty old man, who let you around kids?”

“Oh, but Ms. Benton, it felt positively divine! I felt like a whole new man after. What I wouldn’t give for another dosage of that delicious, tasty fluid. I’m feeling a bit pent up, in fact.”

“Bertie, Bert, best pal of mine, you got about five whole seconds before I fling myself off this cart and into the nearest ink puddle. Seriously.”

“I will admit, the taste _was_ slightly sour and salty. But what relief I felt almost immediately!”

“You are _terrible_.” 

“It slackened my every joint. It felt sinfully warm as it oozed through my body. I would call it an out of body experience, but oh, I was acutely aware of every tingling inch of myself.”

“JESUS _CHRIST_ , BERTIE.”

Both openly laughing now, any pretense at seriousness lost, Bertrum ceased messing with his one-time employee and they fell into companionable silence. 

One thing about there being no time schedule was that the hours melted into one another, much like the ink melted consciousness together or fragmented them apart or rearranged them. Time had no meaning when there was no flesh to age, no corpses to rot away, nothing to differentiate one hour from the next, one day from the next, save for internal obstinacy and careful measuring. 

“I apologize,” Bertrum said after a long while. 

Lacie glanced at him, questions burning in her gaze. “Hey, no harm no foul,” she quipped and rolled her head again. “Always knew you were a perverted fucker.” 

“No, Lacie, not that.”

“What are you on about, boss?”

“I’m sorry for my part in all this.”

“Aw, fuckin’ shit, Bertie,” Lacie sighed, long and exhausted. She stroked the metal siding of the cart and strained to reach the bolt there, knowing its sensitivity. “Blame innit a sexually transmitted disease. ‘S not your fault one bit.”

Politely, he did not call bullshit. He swallowed harshly, tasting motor oil and ink and maybe what might have been blood.

“You mind if we go one more around?”

“Not at all.”


	5. Slipshod Ship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW Graphic and visceral depiction of gore. First paragraph implies sexual content and can be skipped. "Near the end of his shift" to the end of the section has sex implied, can skip as well.

Pain and hardship were all the more intolerable when prolonged and relatively minor. The blunt and sickening force behind a single blow to the stomach eventually relented to nausea and breathlessness, both of which passed quickly enough. The dull ache of hips worn raw, bounced against unyielding wood, of a scalp made tender by yanking and tugging, wrists and hips held so tightly the skin purpled, could be ignored while the pleasure wracked his body, but the next day, and for days after, he had to suppress a wince each time the pain spiked. But even those pains were somewhat thrilling, some sort of vulgar titillation.

Therefore bruises, Joey decided, ranked chief among the category of annoying yet still lesser injuries, but a broken bone was considerably more cumbersome and infuriating. Having to explain to any who were too impolite or moronic to reign in their curiosity, ranked even higher. It felt much like a single jab of a needle into his pride every time. If he had to recount the ignominious origin of his injury one more time, he was liable to break someone else’s arm just to divert their attentions. Wally had outright _laughed_ at him, and Joey decided then that the next time he stumbled across the man’s keys he would be hiding them himself.

He already had a reputation as clumsy, constantly covered in bruises as occasionally Henry forgot where the edge of his clothing began, so why was it so inconceivable that his tale of folly had to be repeated? Endlessly. Were he a paranoid man, he would assume it entertained them. 

Joey hissed out lowly, his broken wrist cradled to his chest in its makeshift splint and sling. Sleep had been nearly impossible to find last night, constantly kept awake by the lingering burn and pulsating ache, and his whole mood was further soured with its lack. (No, it was not the coldness and empty expanse of his bed, shut up.) His productivity was at an all time low, even. Pathetic that a little bit of discomfort rendered him useless. 

Bolstering his resolve, he forced himself straighter in his chair, the very same that had so betrayed him the night previous, and resumed work on correcting a few frames that he found offensively lacking in vibrancy. Bendy was not some slapdash job and ‘good enough’ earned no praise, stole no hearts, and captured no minds. Perfection was attainable provided the appropriate effort and dedication. Remembering the argument that precipitated his fall, Joey grit his teeth. 

If Henry continued to refuse to put forth his fair share in favor of _Linda,_ what would he do? Not even strictly on a professional level, but on a more personal note, he was concerned. The more Henry proved he no longer held any passion for Bendy, the more he worried about their relationship. Would he split apart from the triad to be with Linda? How would he and Bertrum manage the new normal? Would they at all? 

“What in blazes is _this?”_ Bertrum demanded as he stormed in. “How drunk were you when you decided this? Or have you taken complete leave of your senses?”

Pencil skittering across the page, straight through Boris’s eyes, Joey slammed his fist against his desk. Speak of the devil. He swallowed an immediate bark of frustration and slowly faced his 'guest'.

“Thank you for knocking,” he drawled, grinning sharply at the man, too many teeth and too many sharper words hiding behind them. Suddenly his concerns about their relationship seemed all the more present. Henry was leaving, and he and Bertrum were at each other’s throats, and they would fall apart. His dreams were coming apart, no matter how he tried to hold them together, because others kept tearing them, taking bits and pieces, the keystones of his happiness, and leaving him in shambles.

Then, he looked at Bertrum properly. His eyes were cold, his hat so askew it was nearly off his head, and his bow-tie loosened to the point of impropriety. Bertrum was an absolute mess. Were his eyes red as well? A trick of the light, perhaps, but the heavy frown twisting his lips and brow was not.

“Explain this,” he demanded again, waving about the stack of papers in his hand. 

“Let me see them, stop flapping them about.” Apparently, that meant throw them on the desk. Showing an inhuman degree of self-restraint, he decidedly did not roll his eyes at the childish display. He flipped through the papers, offering little more than a cursory glance to confirm his suspicions. “I hadn’t realized senility included illiteracy. These are the designs you sent to me. Are any of my corrections problematic?”

Bertrum seethed, his face turning red, fists balling at his side. “You know very well exactly which of your corrections are problematic!”

Idly Joey noted that he was rather skilled at ruining his lover's composure, whether through rage or more salacious means. He wondered why he bothered riling him up, why he chose to insult him, knowing how precariously everything balanced these days, but, oh, it did release a knot in his chest to fight back against someone instead of swallowing his words, to let loose and allow the situation to come to a head. It felt so wonderfully freeing not to placate and cower. 

“I am well aware, Mr. Drew--”

Joey blinked back to the matter at hand. “Ah, so I suppose we’ve reverted to surname only status.”

“Quit fooling around! This is my livelihood you’re toying with! My _reputation_.”

Joey made a production of setting down the pencil and instead pointing to the papers fanned across his desk. “Please, enlighten me as to what has so upset your ego yet again.” Obviously Bertrum was nearing the end of his patience. How would he react, he wondered. Bertrum had never hit him, nor made any sign of intending to, but everyone had their limits. Would he slap him? Closed fist blows and forcible manhandling seemed too uncouth and unrefined for the man. 

“ _My_ ego isn’t the problem here,” Bertrum snarled, then pointed directly to the header, where there had been, at one time, two names. Joey’s smile widened, taking in the corrected credit line. “These are my amusements, my efforts. You have put forth _nothing_! And you dare claim credit!”

“Why, Bertie,” he jeered, “I thought the limelight and attention bothered you.”

“I take issue with being publicly humiliated! I take issue with my work being claimed by someone who did nothing!”

Always shouting. Always so dramatic. Joey suppressed a flinch and a wince, stress headache reminding him that it had not left and was feeding happily on the noise and chaos Bertrum brought with him. And yet, he could not help but notice, while the man flailed his arms about as he ranted and he gestured to Joey, he did not come within arm’s length except to point to the papers. 

“You overstep your bounds,” Bertrum warned. “You take everything from those who offer you a modicum and demand more! You _use_ people, Joey Drew, and you demand they break their backs for your sake.”

His breathing hitched before he could stop it. “I suppose you imagine placing your name on trite, overdone rides is positive attention,” Joey said with a flippant hand wave, pointedly looking away from the other man. “But face it, _Bertie,_ darling, you would be wise to accept this much. My name is simply more commonplace. I _am_ the face of Bendy, of Joey Drew Studios. What are you?”

Silence answered him.

Confused, Joey looked back to Bertrum. And away had gone the bombast, even the rage, drained away to make room for dawning realization and crushed affection. Bertrum’s shoulders were low, his head still held high but neck threatening to bend under the weight of his words. 

For the first time, he was thankful of the sling as it hid his hand completely. Joey swallowed and rested his other hand back on the desk, pointing to the drawings there rather than allow the trembling to become worse. That knot that had loosened with the first barb tightened ever more. 

“Everyone knows Bendy. Everyone knows Joey Drew Studios. ‘Bertrum Piedmont’ hasn’t been a household name for many years,” he explained, or tried to. “Your staying power is greatly diminished. You as a person have become obsolete. I’m merely ensuring that your brilliant mind and dazzling ideas aren’t lost for it. You haven't got the clout to stand on your own, darling.”

Taking full advantage of being standing while Joey sat, Bertrum crossed his arms and glared down at him. The display was threadbare, holes easily poked through it. “Yes, it’s all for my sake. How delightfully magnanimous of you. Thank you.” 

Frustrated now, he insisted, “It is a matter of _brand recognition_. Nothing more. _Believe_ me, Bertrum.”

“I absolutely do not.”

With that, the man turned on his heel and stormed out, leaving Joey dumbfounded, rigid in his chair. Only after the door began to swing shut did he regain his mobility. 

“Don’t you walk away!” he called after him, surging to his feet. Not breaking his stride once, Bertrum continued down the hall. Joey chased the man, nearly quick enough to reach out and grasp onto his shoulder and instead grabbing his arm. "Wait," he pleaded, breathless.

"Release me," Bertrum hissed, and when Joey shook his head, struggling with too many words, too many things he could and wanted to say, he yanked free of his hold. 

(Why couldn't Joey keep hold of anything? Why did everything he love slip from his hands?)

Suddenly, it didn't matter that they were in the middle of the hallway where anyone could hear them.

“And where might you imagine you will find work?” he screamed. “Where will you find the praise you seek?! You need me! I _own_ Bendy and I _own you!_ ”

Joey stopped short, mouth dry, shoulder sore and throat raw, as he realized Bertrum had finally stopped, his back to him, trembling nearly imperceptibly. 

The man’s silence was crushing. This was so much worse than a slap or a broken bone. It hurt, sharp pain in his throat as he fought his pride to say something, to beg, to do anything to fix the ginger way Bertrum held himself. 

“Bertie?” 

Bertrum shook his head. "I have work to complete, Mr. Drew," he said in a monotone. "Allow me to do my job."

This time, when Bertrum started to walk away, Joey did not follow, rooted in place as he watched helplessly. 

Joey glanced back to his office. To where the overturned chair and his work waited. To the papers Bertrum had left and either refused or forgot to take with him, and Joey wasn’t sure which had better prospects. That knot of guilt twisted tighter, corded steel along his throat, sinking heavily into his stomach. He glanced down the hall, to the corner Bertrum had just rounded.

He could continue to pursue him. Prove that he was willing to put forth the effort that apparently was so lacking. He could wrap the man in a hug and rewrite his name, properly this time, drown out the harsh words with apologies and seal them with kisses, all over his face. He could still fix this. It was hardly too late. He could beg, salvage everything before it collapsed. He could whisper praises and soothe the pride that he had trampled, layer a balm over the grievous wounds he inflicted on his lover, cherish the relationship they had instead of chipping away at the foundation along with Henry’s possible desultory attentions. He could confide his concerns, bask in the support and affection. It needn’t end this way. 

In his mind’s eye, he saw the scene playing out, Joey begging, agreeing he had crossed a line (several), promising to be a supportive partner once more. Bertrum, hesitant, burnt by those very same words before, then wholehearted, enfolding Joey in his arms, and accepting the apology. They would communicate, return to the loving, whole partnership they enjoyed before, and Joey would feel that trembling ache in his chest fading with every word, feel the world righting itself once more. They would be as strong as they could be, if and possibly when Henry disappeared from their lives, taking chunks of their hearts with him to give away to someone else. 

They could be okay, despite all this. They could be happy.

Joey’s broken wrist throbbed. He drew in a steadying breath.

And returned to his office, locked the door behind him, and resumed working.

(After all, why should it be _him_? Joey wondered. He sacrificed enough to Henry to keep him happy, and look at them. He gave plenty and still earned pain for it. Why was it always him to make the sacrifice?)

* * *

He It _They_ dragged this unwilling flesh along the ground.

The head dripped, vision dangling and disjointed, the host flesh desperate to hold fast to the sense that They deemed unnecessary. Energy was better spent elsewhere. The shards of bone within the pelvis shifted with each step. The Thief, the one who had fled, who had absconded without payment, had done more than stole what was rightfully Theirs. Thief had caused damage aplenty. Damage They had to mitigate now. They tightened the binding of ink about the worst of the shards, piecing them together as best as Its memories within Its mind dictated. It all seemed horribly inefficient to Them. It pushed back against Them and howled and made that odd wet, stuttery sound, but They forced It back below the surface. They had no need of It for now except to direct the flesh, to tell Them where the other morsels waited, hid. _Mice from a cat_ , bubbled within the consciousness.

They did not silence It this time, intrigued by Its rambling. 

_Predator prey hide hide oh God please mercy. Hide well hide fast. Escape free live._

It did not mean to flash the sign in Their mind, quickly chasing the image into the slipping darkness, but too late. They stretched beyond the flesh and boiled the ichor and ink, bursting it free of the pipes to spill across the ground, into the walls, the cracks and crevices of what this world constituted as reality. The floorboards swelled and buckled, sopping wet now with the ichor. To prove to It just how It had damned the other morsels, They offered the mental image, bodies crashing through, and Its knowledge filled the rest, where bones and flesh and skin would give way to the force of the fall.

_No!_ Nothing so grand, barely a word, just a long howl colored with desperation. 

They hungered, reminding It of the lost meal that had fled the doors. Let Them beyond these walls, They suggested to It. Let Them feast on the others if It is so inclined. 

Another wail. It shrank back and ceased struggling inside the flesh. They nearly fell through, misshapen leg and arms sinking into wood and bones melting together. They dragged It back. They had need for It still. They refused It peace until They were satiated.

Where were the rest? They hungered. They had need for solid shape and It would provide that.

_Spare._ A face rose within the conscious. _Spare._

It was fond of making a rumble in the chest when thinking, They had noticed, and They did so now, emulating Its earlier sounds to assuage It and stop It from trying to drown in the miasma. It eased back to the surface. 

_Promise_.

They hummed deeper, louder, longer, until something cracked and wetly slipped free of the appropriate location within the chest. It groaned and choked. There was no pleasing It. Instead, They resumed dragging the skin and meat and ink, puppeteering it since It was incapable and unwilling.

The spine began to reshape, protruding from the ink as They consumed more of the flesh and It howled and bucked, twitching. They rose to the upright position They typically saw It in and delighted. The shape was unwieldy and awkward but serviceable, especially as They entered the ‘lift’ and They dragged a direction from It.

_Spare. Begging._

It continued, gurgling desperately, but They hungered not for Its paltry words.

A body appeared, and it held Their books. The one with eyes Beyond, hands that had reached and felt, the one that could have been one of Them if only it did not reek so disgustingly of this world. Would it follow They wondered, when They had Their fill? 

_Mercy! Mercy!_ They pushed It below, drowning Its cries, feeling It grow weaker, sounds and motions slowing, then raised It up once more. It did not speak again.

But, how interesting, the Not-Beyonder spoke to Them. Not in the shapeless, colorless words of its own tongue but Theirs. The accent was thick, cloying, sharpness where there was meant to be subtlety, but it spoke well enough. ‘Return, hollow, fleshless, taint.’ It did not Know, but it came close.

In the mind, It frenzied. Neon exploded within the darkness, shrill, as It shrieked and attempted to divert Their attention. _Shut up you need not hear this is do not listen me hear me let him flee he will not feed you do not want him he is so young please he won’t taste move on move on see them go to them as many as you want not him them them them._ Faces, other faces, arose just as quickly as the words, blurred in the haste. _Them them them. Not._

The Not-Beyonder was of this world, however, and so it tore open with the slightest push against and through the softer bits, where bone did not resist except to catch on the edge of Their claws. It wailed, and the Not-Beyond choked, blood and ink surging up through the pierced stomach (They grinned at It as They thanked It for the clarifying information) and up the esophagus. Blood and ink poured from the Not-Beyonder’s mouth while something tough and stringy ( _intestines, tendons, oh God,_ It whimpered) tangled around their claws. They shook Their claw free and it slid to the ground with a moist smack.

They assured It that the Not-Beyonder was not yet dead, and They would not yet feed. After all, It had shown Them many other faces and bodies and souls to taste. 

It did not answer, but It also did not attempt to sink below the miasma again, so They allowed Its silence for the time being, stepping over the Not-Beyonder’s rent open body in search of others.

* * *

Near the end of the shift, Joey cornered Bertrum, demanded he come to his office to discuss matters. (And paced behind his desk, for the last hour, stealing a cigarette from the pack he had promised himself never to touch, and then stole another and continued pacing.)

Bertrum entered the room with a heavy gaze, leaden with hurt, and his head held high, even when Joey told him to lock the door behind him.

Joey apologized with a passionate kiss and an obscene gyration of his hips and his good hand disappearing under fabric. Soft kisses and hard nips of teeth in equal measure until Bertrum groaned and pinned him against the door.

"What has gotten into you?" Bertrum asked, and Joey couldn't find an answer, not even a placating lie. 

"I know what will be getting into me," Joey growled instead, and Bertrum was apparently satisfied with that.

The concern Bertrum showed when he stripped, first for his wrist then for his protruding bones, twisted the knot of guilt ever tighter, so tight he feared he would choke. (They cared about each other, they loved each other, how did this become so twisted around? When had this become a power struggle?) Joey ignored it, and in time convinced Bertrum to as well, using his mouth for something other than pretty words. 

After, Joey made the concession to give Bertrum second billing, adding the man’s name in dark blue ink, and yet again marveled at the fragments of happiness still in his hands.

* * *

The face It tried to hide stood before Them, carrying a wrench. The metallic taste of its fear permeated the air, Their hunger redoubled, and They lunged, even as it tried to flee.

Stupid, They chided it, it should have hit Them.

Unwillingly It wished that the metal-one did not love It. They did not know what that was meant to mean, and They did not care really, except that it made the meal easier to capture, and it smelled so delicious. 

_Stop others stop taste others skin take others._ In the mind, It babbled and rambled, thoughts running into one another.

Paying no mind to Its attempts to divert Them, They tackled the morsel and threw Their bulk against it, forcing it against the floor. It squirmed beneath Them but did not yet strike with the improvised weapon. (What was the point, They asked It, and the only response was _Hope, stupid lover_ ). They rose up, dragging it with, arms around its chest and grinning down at it. They held fast to its ribs and squeezed, testing the strength of bone, and in the mind It flinched with the crack.

“You wanted,” They forced It to speak Their words and stop Its hiding, “your name... up in lights... Come… darling… did you not…?” 

“Joey,” the morsel whimpered Its name. “Please, this isn’t you, dearest. Please, Joey, look at me! It's me! Bertie! Please remember!”

They dragged the flesh and the flesh in Their arms closer to the machine. The Loved-One's body convulsed and twitched, finally legs kicking out, wrench swinging blindly, shaking and breathing quick, fast, fast as a heartbeat. Squeezing harder now, protecting Their hold, They hummed, and It screamed Loved-One's name. 

"Dear, you must fight this!" it begged. "Come back to me, please!"

In an effort to silence it, They layered a hand over its mouth and held it this way now, neck straining and legs stumbling to keep up lest They drag it. 

“Love... me still, _Bertie_ ?” They asked, grinning broad and wide, stretching flesh and baring teeth not Theirs. They gripped harder on its skull, careful not to crush the fragile thing just yet. Yet. The gears of the giant machine ( _ride_ , It sobbed the answer, _release, please_ ) churned eagerly. 

The flesh was weak. (In the mind It became nothing but neon and glass, a single note of horror and depression and disgust, and They drank deeply.) Their claw caught again, teeth of the gear pulling and yanking and swallowing Their ink along with its skull, brain and blood.

_Hate hate hate hate._

The note morphed, lower, lower, in pitch until it was little more than a whine. Shaking It and the head,They forced It deep enough below that the colors faded to gray, the whine a miserable mockery of Its usual hum.

Metal plunged into the flesh. Two other morsels had approached while They dealt with It, one carrying a pipe and the other darting to pick up the wrench the Loved-One dropped when They grabbed its face. Each morsel screamed in their ugly, backwards speech, demanding They leave. Laughter rumbled in the chest, slippery, as the smaller one dashing forward in the cover of the larger, but They reached beyond the flesh again, to the spread across and within the floorboards, and yanked. One falling through to its knees howled and shrieked, too loud, too sharp, while the other staggered, caught itself, and plunged the pipe into the flesh.

That would not do. They tried to get It to tell Them what just burst in the chest but It continued to whine instead.

_Hate hate hate hate._

Hunger and pain twisted and slipped like a wet knot as Their claws dug into the closest throat, into, through, beyond, and They flung the sloppy piece away. They devoured the remains, digging for _hearts_ to rebuild what had popped. The floor-bound screamer They dispatched as easily, forcing It to witness, as It had been so preoccupied with that useless scent. 

_Hate hate hate hate._

Where next? They asked It. Who next? Gleefully, They poked through the haze in Its speech, digging for a new target. 

_Hate **hate hate HATE**. _

* * *

“Bertie,” Joey whined, face half buried in the pillow. “‘M s’r.”

Bertrum paused in tracing random patterns on Joey’s bared back. “I beg your pardon?” he queried. That did somewhat sound like an apology, half assed and mumbled.

At first, Joey propped himself up on his one good arm and offered him a sideways glance, but then apparently decided to flop over onto his back instead, wincing a bit as he did so. He rolled his head a bit to meet his eyes. For a split moment, he appeared completely assured of himself, though that only lasted the split second. “I know you understood that,” he complained, but chewed his lower lip and squirmed a bit. “Bertie, I’m sorry. I have been treating you more as an employer treats his staff, and a particularly cruel one at that. I don't own you, you are an amazingly talented man, and you don’t deserve the brunt of my frustrations, nor are you at the whim of my fancies. ”

Heaving a heavy sigh, Bertrum adjusted himself as well, scooting one arm underneath the other man and dragging them both to lean against the headboard, Joey fitting with worrisome ease atop him considering the height difference. Not for the first time, he resented that the man, even when he was brutally and inhumanly infuriated with him, seemed to tug his heart strings. "What makes this different, Joey?" he asked, exhausted. "This vacillation between cold and affectionate is driving me mad. I deserve better."

Joey did not flinch, but his Adam's apple visibly bobbed as he swallowed harshly. "I am well aware," he said after another swallow. "I have failed you as a partner. I have hurt you. I _set out_ to hurt you, without any apology let alone an adequate one. I will never say such hateful things again. I will never hurt you. I refuse.”

Bertrum tried to study the man in his arms, to determine if the sincerity he perceived in his expression and tone were genuine or affectations due to his own desperate desire to return to normal, to happiness. Every time he thought he had found his absolute limit of what he would stomach in terms of Joey's behavior, the man managed to sweet talk his way back to his good graces, to earn back his trust before he shattered it all over again. 

“It’s understandable that you find that incredulous. I would as well.” With hesitant, stuttering movements, Joey reached up to stroke Bertrum's cheek. “But I will prove myself for all time in hopes that some day your trust in me will return.”

His hands were cold, but his expression was warm, as warm as something so delicately balanced between hope and apprehension could be.

“...I hope so,” Bertrum said after a long while.

"I _do_ love you," Joey promised. Despairing. Almost sincere.

"And I love you." Letting out a sigh, Bertrum kissed the top of Joey's head, and wondered if he was making yet another mistake.


	6. Sheep Sheep Sheep

Sammy Lawrence had gone fucking insane. 

To be fair, Henry only recognized him as Sammy by his voice and the earlier helpfully labeled audio log. 

The Sammy he knew and remembered would never wear overalls. He also had not been _totally_ inkified. Even if Henry had not already come to the realization that Joey had completely destroyed the studio and absolutely and horrifically ruined lives in ways even Henry hadn’t anticipated, this was a whole new level of messed up. 

And, of course, now Henry had to pay for Joey’s mistake. With a dustpan to the back of the head, and then some. 

Sammy had taken advantage of Henry’s semi-conscious state to drag him bodily through the halls. Every time Henry had started to come to full awareness, his fuzzy mind had slid back under the fog of a concussion, his limbs leaden and pain shooting down his neck and spine each time Sammy dragged him over a bit of debris. Splinters of wood had dug into his back and now, with drying ink plastering his shirt to his body, they itched, along with the rope tightly binding his arms to his sides. 

Henry tested the strength of the restraints and found only the slightest bit of give. Great. Bound up, in the company of Samuel “I’m gonna lose my mind and start a Bendy cult” Lawrence, and sans his ax. The only positive was that Sammy hadn’t bothered to gag him.

“Sammy,” Henry called to the arguably-still-somewhat-a-man. “What are you doing?”

Sammy paused while laying the ax against the post, but didn’t turn around yet. “What I am doing is of the utmost importance,” he answered. “The sacrifice for our lord must be perfect.”

His voice rose up an octave. “ _Sacrifice_? Sammy. Sam. You are going to sacrifice me?”

“Yes,” he interrupted. “Be calm, little sheep.” Sammy, ink covered (or maybe made of ink, considering how Henry’s elbow had sank into his chest when he flailed), with his face obscured by a stupid Bendy cutout mask, turned to face him, raising up his arms to gesture to the ceiling. “Can you not hear him overhead, crawling?”

“No.”

Dropping his arms, he managed to glare without facial features. “In time, sheep,” he promised. “In good time.”

* * *

“ _Joey Drew_!”

A screaming Sammy Lawrence never boded well. Joey paused mid sip of coffee and mid character of the letter he was writing to side-eye Henry at his elbow. 

“Did you spring another deadline on Sammy?” Henry hissed, right before a drenched, dripping mess of a man stormed in. 

The tall, solidly built music director stood, splitting the doorway, and pointed an accusing finger at Joey. “You!” 

“Me?”

“Who else?” he demanded, storming up to Joey’s desk and slamming his hands down on the surface. 

His blonde hair stuck to his head, plastered there by globules of ink, Sammy puffed up his chest to stand even taller. His deep purple sweater was positively drenched in the shiny black, and his goldenrod pants would need replacing, coated in black and no doubt irreparably stained. Of all the days for a pipe to regurgitate ink all over the man, it had to be the day he wore his lucky pants. Joey pretended he didn’t notice that fact and instead offered the other man a handkerchief. 

“This _ink situation_ has gone on for far too long!” Sammy barked as he snatched the cloth from his hands and scrubbed at the ink dribbling down the bridge of his nose. “Tell me, _please_ , seeing as this was all _your_ brilliant idea, just how I am meant to get any work done like this?”

Rising from the chair, Joey grinned at the director, hands raised in a placating motion. “Come now,” he soothed. “You’re correct.”

“Not only is all the noise and foot traffic in my space a disruption, but now with the pipes bursting every time you so much as look in their direction--” The man’s brain finally processed what he had just heard. He cut off with a faint exhale of shock. “Did you just understand me?”

Unable, or unwilling, to help himself, Henry laughed. “Joey can be reasonable on occasion.”

Joey waved off the sideways insult and approached the ink covered man with an understanding, sympathetic grimace. “I did indeed, Sammy. This situation as is is untenable, and I apologize for forcing you to suffer the indignities and inconveniences.” He nearly, but not quite, took Sammy about the shoulders, hand hovering a few inches away from him. “Hadn’t you once made mention of desiring some sort of sanctuary, a slice of peace of your own?”

“Drew, if you dare try to put me into the sewers with Jack--”

“What low opinion you have of me! Henry, tell him he has unjustly slandered my character!”

“We’re looking into setting you up a space of your own without all the interruptions,” Henry said instead of rising to the bait. “Probably near the orchestra.”

Rolling his eyes, Joey snapped his fingers to direct both men’s attention back to him. “That is a discussion for another time. Sammy, go home, shower off, and take the remainder of the day to decompress.” He paused, a muscle in his jaw popping momentarily. “You didn’t swallow any of it, right? No bumps to the head?”

Sammy blinked at the question. 

“You got some, uh,” Henry trailed off, pointing to the corner of his mouth. “You know.”

“Oh. Thank you, Mr. Stein.” Sammy dabbed at the ink that had dribbled and begun to dry on his lower lip. 

Eyes trained on those lips, Joey swallowed thickly. “Recuperate at home, Sammy,” he ordered. “Rest well and remain hydrated to ensure a speedy convalescence. Bendy will be waiting for you when you return.”

* * *

“Oh… but you…” Sammy gripped Henry’s chin, turning his face to and fro. Henry suppressed a gag at the pungent odor of ink and the slick feeling on his cheeks. “Yes, I know your face. But where from?”

He held back the urge to spit at him. Instead, he smiled. “It’s me, Henry. Don’t you remember? I used to save you a slice of Linda’s devil’s food cake.” When Sammy did not immediately release his hold of him, he added, “Now let me go you fruit loop.”

“Henry? No.”

“Henry, yes.”

Sammy was quiet for a while, head tilted as if a new perspective would reveal the answers he sought. Then, finally, he murmured, “Maybe” and released his hold on Henry. Blood rushed back to his cheeks where Sammy’s cold, clammy fingers had pressed hard. 

Small progress, but progress all the same. Maybe with another too long, meandering conversation with this deranged freak, he could convince him to undo the ropes too. Henry fought a snort and, taking advantage of Sammy’s back to him once more, struggled with the binds again. Rope began wearing his wrists and forearms raw, but compared to being sacrificed or getting an ax to the face, he much preferred a little rope burn. 

He was so engrossed in freeing himself that he didn’t notice Sammy stilling, raising a hand to call for silence where there already was. Henry froze and strained to hear the apparent crawling that Sammy was so enamored and excited by. All he heard was a faint thudding noise, slick, a wet rag slapping against linoleum. 

“Are you certain you are him, Mr. Stein?” Sammy questioned, voice soft with implications lost on Henry.

“Very damn sure.”

He chuckled, “The lord is quite cross with you indeed.”

“I really couldn’t care less about the opinion of whoever it is that gives you your loving inky intercourse--”

Abruptly, Sammy lunged for the ax. He whirled about on his heel and stalked closer to him, raising the weapon overhead. “ _EMBRACE_!” he roared. 

“Sorry!” Henry shouted. Pissing off the man with the ax was a bad idea. Hurriedly, he continued, “Sorry, sorry, I thought that was, you know, biblical. I’m just ignorant, not dismissive.”

The other man did not lower his threat. 

Henry licked his lips and offered a friendly, warm smile, like every single bland, too-nicey-nice fake ass grin he had ever given to those so easily taken in by a few kind words. “Look, Sammy,” he said, voice curling up like a sundew and dripping with honey. “I don’t want what your lord wants, and I doubt you do either. You want freedom, and you don’t need him for that. _I_ can help you, Sammy.”

Not a word in response, but the man did finally, finally, set the ax back to the floor instead of threatening impromptu facial deconstructive surgery. 

“Don’t you remember?” Henry asked. 

A grin in his voice, Sammy answered, “Oh, I _remember_.”

* * *

Sammy Lawrence looked like hell, exhausted and wan, and constantly coughed, the sound dry and raspy, like whatever clogged his lungs was in too deep for him to manage to expel. Not a single member of the orchestra could overlook that, nor the man’s odd behavior. There was some discontent, some frustration, when they were shooed out so that the man could enter his so-called sanctuary, but worry and concern far superseded the irritation.

Every single person in the orchestra could attest to the man’s temperamental nature and agree he was difficult to work with, let alone underneath. He could be obnoxious and exhausting as he accepted only absolute perfection and offered praises sparingly. But they also adored him for he was also a brilliant visionary and offered respectful criticism, driving them to perform more skillfully than they had ever imagined themselves capable. He was demanding in a professional capacity, and softer, more like an actual man and not a machine, when off the clock. There were no subtle insinuations of incompetence for the pigmentation of their skin, or cute endearments rather than honorifics, and even when raging, spluttering mad, his tongue had never once ‘slipped’ on a pronoun. The time Sammy had timed L’Escalier du Diable to reach its ultimate crescendo right as Joey walked in, startling the man into letting out a shrill squawk, lived on, told with breathless laughter. When Sybille needed to babysit her young niece, Sammy had allowed her to lay down her flute for the day and stuck to pianissimo, whispering melodies to lull the babe to bed, and quicker, buzzing refrains to excite and occupy the child while she was awake. 

Sammy Lawrence was a hard ass, but he was beloved, and that was why nearly the full orchestra was worried sick as the hours ticked by since Sammy had last rushed into his sanctuary.

“I’m getting Drew,” one woman, a clarinetist, insisted. 

“We can’t be sure Joey even knows about this,” another, a drumist this time, argued. “This could cost him his job.”

“Or a wage cut.”

Of the throng of people, most remained silent, gagged by their worry for the music director, but enough spoke up in turn. “We can’t be sure of a lot of things!”

“What about Mr. Stein?”

“No. Norman?”

“Mr. Lawrence would be furious if we involve him.”

“Franks?”

“Wally?”

“Him?”

“That’s not bad actually, he has those keys doesn’t he?”

“That is assuming they are not lost again.”

“Assuming the boy is not lost.”

A select few separated from the gathered knot and darted to all corners of the studio to search out the janitor.

In no time, yet nowhere near quick enough for anyone with their heart in their throats and adrenaline in their veins, Wally, (and Norman, as the projectionist had apparently overheard their frantic planning and sought out the younger man himself) dragged a limp, semi conscious Sammy out of a hidden room. Whispers, accusations, demands whether _anyone_ had known that the room existed, bubbled through the crowd, but not for long. Sammy mumbled incoherently, something that did not even sound like English, and went completely limp. 

Norman hoisted him up higher to keep the man from hitting the floor. 

“Get Johnny,” he ordered, and someone else took off like a shot. “Franks, you and me’re gonna have to carry him to the infirmary.”

Wally nodded, swallowing thickly, wide, clear green eyes locked on the unconscious director. Even at this distance Norman could almost hear the gears turning in the young man’s head. 

“We’re gonna get him to the infirmary and he’s gonna be just fine, kid,” he assured him.

Blinking, as if coming awake from a deep sleep, he stared at Norman. “Oh, right,” he mumbled. “Let’s get outta here.” 

For the next week, the infirmary was off limits, nearly empty save for Sammy, who remained there half conscious at best, coughing himself breathless whether awake or sleeping; Johnny, who had, to everyone’s shock, been given the full week off by Mr. Drew; Mr. Stein, who seemed to be making up for the fact Joey had not been seen since they’d found Sammy; and a strange man with fastidiously styled, bleached blonde hair, and eyes no one could claim to have met and a name none had heard. Even Johnny mumbled that he wasn’t sure, his attention focused on his older brother and increasingly frazzled as he forwent sleep in favor of listening to his wet gurgling. It was generally accepted his name was 'Dr. Hackenbush', and this was generally correct enough, seeing as Sammy’s condition began to stabilize. 

By the end of the week, Sammy still looked awful, still looked exhausted, but his coughing had lessened to an occasional occurrence rather than its previous constancy and he seemed in much better spirits-- back to his usual, grouchy self. 

(And if the orchestra as a whole happened to work harder, complain less, if there happened to always be a fresh cup of tea on Sammy’s desk with the perfect dollop of honey, if they happened to ask for Sammy to join them after work more often, well, that was their business.)

* * *

“You _don’t_ remember, or else you wouldn’t have tied me up in order to get me murdered,” Henry sighed, far too exasperated by the conversation considering his life was on the line. 

“Sacrifice,” Sammy insisted. 

Henry closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, counting to five. He said, “I helped you before, Sammy. I fixed the ink encasing your body before, and I’ll do it again in a minute, you just have to give me my arms back at the least.”

“You were… You _were_ there, yes. Your face is so familiar.”

“That’s it Sammy,” he encouraged. Finally, some progress. “It’s me, Henry Stein, the man who already got your lungs to stop filling up with ink once before, and who’ll do you one better if you let me go.”

No response. Not even a twitch. With that mask in place, Henry was basically navigating the man’s emotional state half blind, but he had a good idea that the only thought in Sam’s ink drenched brain was sycophantic ramblings. All he had to base his observations on was the man’s posture, but even that seemed more like the disjointed, over articulated movements that he’d staggered around in immediately following the first ritual. The man in front of him didn’t seem like a man, let alone like Samuel Lawrence.

“Sammy?” Henry whistled twice. “Didn’t you hear me?”

Finally, Sammy, glee and deranged fervor evident in his voice, clapped his hands together. “Oh, little sheep, be in awe!” He declared, “He comes!”

‘He’ was the lord, wasn’t he? “Well, untie me then!” he demanded, yanking at the rope.

Henry just needed to get at least one hand free, then he could grab the ax and run. Sammy turned his back to him once more, opening his arms and bending his back to bear himself to the ceiling, presumably where ‘the lord’ was. Subtlety abandoned, he yanked on the ropes again, openly trying to bust free now. Let this crazy bastard try to stop him, Henry would bite and claw his way to freedom even if it killed Sammy. 

“Sacrifices must be made, Mr. Stein. I do hope you understand.”

* * *

“Mr. Faulkner, thank you for stopping by,” Joey greeted, rising from his chair with the book open to the appropriate page. 

“Well, you asked for me,” Faulks, nervous, shifted his weight in the doorway. “After hours too. Kinda odd, sir.”

“Come along.”

Faulks did not. “If this is about the rosin, it’s in Mx. Granville’s tuba,” he explained in a burst of guilt and anxiety. “You’re not going to fire me, are you?”

Joey paused, turning the words over, but did not address the admission, his stride steady and gaze locked on the door ahead. “Not hardly,” he said, voice suddenly warm and holding back a laugh. “Do try to keep pace, Faulks.” 

“Sure thing, sir. So, what _is_ this about then?”

“You’re aware that Mr. Lawrence has taken ill.”

“Yes, of course I am.” The whole studio was well aware. “... Did something happen? Is he okay?”

“Of course!” Joey crowed as he ushered the man into the dim room, pushing him forward and closing the door behind them. “With a little ingenuity, why, he’ll be better than ever!”

The room was filled with candle smoke and ragged, moist breathing. At the edges of the room, Henry’s distinctive, bulky and towering height stood, only just barely visible in the darkness. The light coming from the gap under the door stretched, illuminating a faintly circular shape drawn on the floor, and in that circle, something too dark to make out.

“Hey, Mr. Drew, this is kind of messed up,” Faulkner stammered. “That’s, that’s some black magic, Satanic nonsense!”

“Nonsense indeed,” Henry agreed, stepping closer. “Shut up.”

When the large man took a step closer, Faulkner tried to back up, only to hit his back against the door. The air in the room felt thin, too thin to breathe, yet tight and too warm and heavy against his skin, like the humid, sopping wet summers of his childhood in Florida. Something wrapped around his ankle, drawing a startled cry from his lips, but when he looked down, nothing was there. 

“Look, I don’t know, don’t care what’s going on,” he pleaded, trying and failing to shrink back from Henry’s grasping hands. “Don’t know a thing, promise! Just don’t hurt m--”

One hand covered his mouth and muffled his shouting, the other fisting in his shirt and dragging him closer to the circle and whatever twitching thing waited there. Henry’s blue-gray eyes seemed to shine with a light all their own, glimmering like liquid silver.

“Sacrifices must be made, Mr. Faulkner,” Joey said, voice flat, too wide smile glinting and stretching even further. “I do hope you understand.”

* * *

He had not come so far, lived this long, escaped Them for decades by _whatever_ means necessary, just to die at the hands of some fanatic wearing vandalized Bendy merchandise.

"I do understand," Henry said with a smile. "I get it now. Our savior must be honored. If this is to be my lot in life, I will happily give my life for our lord."

"At last the wayward sheep accepts his usefulness. The ritual must be completed. Your sacrifice is necessary, Henry. He will be most pleased by you," Sammy praised. Eagerly he hastened away, stalking into the other room.

As soon as the door swung shut, the grin slipped off Henry's face and he began writhing once more, throwing his weight against the rope and received an inch of slack as repayment for the skin that ripped open on his wrists. 

"Sheep sheep sheep," Sammy babbled his stupid nursery rhyme nonsense, static and feedback crackling through the speakers. "It's time for sleep."

Maybe it was time for someone else, but not him. Henry refused. He was not ready and he would not die before he was.

"Rest your head. It's time for bed."

Blood dripped down his fingers. The wetness lubricated the rope slightly.

"In the morning, you may wake. Or in the morning, you'll be dead." 

Rope fibers caught and tangled on his chipped fingernails, a sharp tugging pain as he struggled to loosen the bindings.

"Hear me Bendy! Arise from the darkness! Arise and claim my offering!" 

The metal gate ahead began to rise.

"Claim nothing!" Henry snapped, right as the ropes did. Surging forward, he snatched up the ax and sprinted. Behind him, Sammy howled for mercy from his so called savior. "Fuck you!" he cried, vindicated. The banging in the vents overhead chased behind him, a heady heartbeat pulsing in the walls, the indescribably familiar pressure of Their magic saturating the air. 

Hacking at the boards in his way, and the slimy, grasping creatures that trailed behind him, Henry refused to let it all end here. A steady mantra of survival echoed in his skull between each thud, each snap of wood, until suddenly the pressure lifted. 

"Oh _fuck_." Panting and breathing raggedly, he bent over and gasped for air, struggling to breathe in enough so that his lungs would stop burning like a pyre. He glanced around, hefting the ax. Straight ahead, through a pool of ink, was a door that had to lead toward one of the access halls. To his left was a hallway filled to the brim with fallen boards. Which way would be better? His knees wobbled like gelatin and nearly dropped him to the floor. "Oh, God. Okay. Think about this."

Something burst from the ink, darkness swarmed the room, ink pouring off its vaguely humanoid shape in sheets. Its too wide grin and lopsided bow were pristine, stark white against the absolute black of its body. 

Henry cursed, and it lunged forward for him. 

Pivoting on his heel, he raced back the way he came, slogging through the same puddles and pushing aside any boards in his way. It kept pace behind him. When he dared look back, he saw its gait, uneven and dragging, like its legs could not, or would not, hold its own weight. 

His breathing sawed up and down his throat, adrenaline leaving him shaky and nauseated. His knees buckled. The ax skittered across the floor, far away, then sank into the ink, far deeper than it had any right to. Stitches in his side from fighting for air, he scrambled back to his feet, yanking free of the cold, unctuous hand that had grabbed his shirt. No time. Henry shot forward again, eyes locked on the open door ahead. 

He threw himself against the door, sliding the bar in place as he did and gulping in as much air as he could stomach without puking. The thing chasing him hit the wood with a solid thud and a low whine, and the lights of the whole studio flickered back to life. 

Releasing a sigh of relief, Henry rested his head against the wood. What _was_ that? Was that... Bendy? Or Them? It certainly almost felt like Them, but not fully. Only a hint of Their presence. Now that he actually stopped to check, he realized at some point They had left him alone for the time being.

Henry rubbed his temples. _Joey_ deserved to deal with this shit, not him, damn it. 


	7. Celebration

Sometimes sweet satisfaction and a job well done came in the form of praises. Sometimes it was a vaguely torso shaped ink creature that gurgled in some approximation of English and smiled at its three creators. The creature lacked eyes, and arms and legs, but those horns and that smile were distinctly Bendy. 

Joey, grinning nearly as broadly as the Bendy ersatz did, threw his arms about both Bertrum and Henry’s shoulders and practically crowed in triumph. “What a marvel!” he cried, fighting back giddy laughter. “What a breakthrough!”

“I wouldn’t praise yourself too highly,” Bertrum suggested, only half joking as he ran an appraising eye over ‘Bendy’ once more. “Look at it, it’s hardly even the appropriate shape.”

“His head is,” Joey protested. “That smile is all characteristic of Bendy as well.”

“You think it can understand us, or if it cares if you call it ‘it’?” Henry snorted. “I wonder.”

“Now you both are simply caviling and being hypercritical for your own amusement.”

Bertrum leaned in and kissed the pout from his expression. “Where shall we stow away your definitely not off-model creation, dear?” 

“I suppose—”

“Joey’s office,” Henry decided, ignoring the cringe Joey made at the suggestion. “It’s certainly not going to hide under my desk, or in one of Bert’s machines.”

Letting out an involuntary shudder, Bertrum agreed. “We are already constantly cleaning up the mess from the burst pipes. We hardly need another source of ink roaming around.”

“If you both are quite finished tearing apart my accomplishments, I will take Bendy to my office. Though neither of you deserve it, with how you have degraded me and this poor creature.”

“Oh, and now it’s a creature?” Henry teased. “Good. For a minute I thought you were about to call it your son.”

“He likely loves and respects me more than the both of you combined,” Joey complained. To the inky blob, he got down to his knees and smiled at it. “Hey there, buddy. Your legs are a work in progress, so I suppose I’ll carry you until we correct that slight imperfection.”

Obviously Joey had expected a response, and his smile steadily grew wider and thinner in the subsequent silence. 

“Perhaps it’s because ‘he’ lacks ears,” Bertrum suggested, sotto voce to Henry. “Or perhaps it is the lack of a proper jaw.”

With a grunt and pointed silence in response to Bertrum’s jest, Joey wrapped his arms around the thing, hefting it up as he stood and nearly toppling over. 

“Careful!” Hurriedly, Bertrum reached out to steady him, but apparently it was unnecessary as Joey regained his center of gravity. Also surprisingly, the thing’s body, while made of ink, didn’t drench him in its filth. 

“I have a steady hold on him, thank you very much,” Joey protested, though his voice strained with the exertion, and started carrying it out of the room. “Do begin preparations, kitten, reservations are for seven tonight, not tomorrow.”

“Look at Mr Time-Clock now,” Henry elbowed Bertrum, smirking, then wrapped his arm around his shoulders, pressing him to his chest. Bertrum eased into the embrace, hugging him back tightly. “Let’s let the proud papa tuck in his little boy.”

From down the hall, Joey shouted, “You are _quite_ the comedian, Stein!” 

“You are incorrigible, like a schoolboy tugging on pigtails,” Bertrum muttered. Then, realizing the dress code of the location they had already chosen for dinner, he pushed back and looked up at Henry, studying him. Or rather, his hair. As expected, it was a barely presentable, scruffy mess. “I _will_ take that disaster you call hair and tame it.”

“Is that all you will tame, Mr. Piedmont?”

Reaching up on his toes and pulling the man’s shoulders down closer, Bertrum kissed him deeply and carded his fingers through his hair, correcting the worst of the messy strands. 

Henry’s hands found his hips, then moved around to his back, but Bertrum pushed them apart. 

“Suit up, sir,” he ordered huskily. “We have a schedule to keep.”

.

The restaurant, Bertrum’s choice, of course, was as upscale as befitting their budget and recent success. All jests aside, what they had achieved was truly miraculous and worth the expense to mark the occasion. A bit of indulgence kept morale elevated, and morale kept the ship afloat, after all, and Bertrum would be lying if he said it was a wholly unselfish endeavor. This place was practically renown for their gin martinis. Paired with a tender sirloin, the perfect balance of smoky, toothy meat and smooth juniper and the salinous and rich bite of olives, he was greatly looking forward to this. That they now had the perfect excuse to enjoy the night thoroughly was simply an additional benefit.

A thought occurred to him while they were being served their drinks, however, and it would not let him be. Drumming his fingers throughout- an old fashioned for Henry, wine for Joey and his own dirty martini- he then raised his finger to them soon as their server had left. 

“It’s likely for the best we attempted to animate Bendy first,” he proposed. His two boyfriends met his gaze steadily, each searching, patient. “I cannot even _begin_ to imagine if we had tried it with Alice first. Off model is all the more abhorrent with humanoids. Something unnatural about them. Incomplete, almost inherently misshapen.”

A grimace from Henry, probably not only due to the whiskey he sipped. “Oh, yes, that’s true,” he acknowledged, nodding. “Good thing we don’t have to worry about that.”

“No, not today,” Joey agreed. Raising his glass slightly, smiling loosely, he looked softer, blurred out and no longer all hard edges and sharpness. Bertrum had hardly even noticed until now just how wound up the man had appeared until all the tension went away. “Instead the matter at hand is celebrating our accomplishment, efforts, and imagination, without any of which our dreams would never have seen fruition.” 

“To Bert, who provides the accomplishment, and to me who embodies the effort... and to Joey who provides the imagination.”

Joey’s smile slid out of joint slightly at Henry’s words. “It’s poor form to toast to yourself,” he mumbled into his glass. 

“Well, sometimes you got to take the initiative,” Henry laughed. After a second’s pause, Joey snorted and shook his head and continued to sip his drink.

They idly chatted as they awaited the waiter, Henry mentioning a door stopper of a novel that he had discovered through Linda’s suggestions- a winding tale of two families’ histories carefully and inextricably intertwined through hardship, fate, and the cyclic misery of human faults, which in turn led Bertrum to launch into a discussion about the last book he had read from the same author- a crushingly bleak insight into greed and man’s natural predilections, all told in a pearlescent metaphor. Joey, who had fallen silent during their discussion, merely smiled and admitted he had not read much of interest lately, but encouraged them to continue, as he was still enjoying himself immensely.

When the time came to order, and Joey nearly ordered _steak au poivre_ , Bertrum found he could simply could not sit idly by. “Joey,” he laid his hand on the man’s wrist, interrupting him as gently as possible. “Might I suggest the salade Niçoise instead? It would better suit the provençal rosé you are already enjoying.”

“Ah.”

It was certainly odd to see Joey at a loss for words. It was surprisingly unsettling, in fact, and Bertrum almost regretted interrupting, though he’d offered suggestions to him plenty of times previous. 

“Your judgement has always superceded mine.” Turning to the waiter once more, Joey continued, “You heard the man, did you not?” His grin spread like oil through joints. “I’m afraid I’m hopeless when it comes to tastes.”

From there, their night continued pleasantly. His meal was every bit as delicious as he had hoped, the company was divine, and the atmosphere had a certain je ne sais quois that tantalized. Under the table, Bertrum occasionally dared trailing the tip of his shoe along the length of Henry’s ankle and calf or layering his hand over Joey’s knee, thigh, edging higher in his boldness. The faint flush on both men’s cheeks was well worth the risk of potentially being seen doing so, and the risk itself was almost as exciting in a purely theoretical sense. 

Bertrum noticed something peculiar however. Though Henry was steadily draining his third whiskey of the night and still clear eyed and articulate enough, with only the slightest burr to his voice, Joey had only just started his second glass and was already lilting in his chair. 

Catching Henry’s eyes, Bertrum unobtrusively edged closer to help keep Joey upright. Damn the risk of public displays, if he could flirt so brazenly he could express his concern for his boyfriend. Leaning in, he whispered in Joey’s ear, “Are you feeling well, sweetness?” 

“Yes,” he answered, alcohol dragging out the sound sibilantly. “‘M marvelous.”

Glancing down at the man’s plate, Bertum hid his frown at the fact that it appeared still nearly full, barely even touched. He tried to think if he actually witnessed Joey taking a bite but he had hardly paid attention to that before now. Did he have to pay attention to such things? “And your meal?” Bertrum asked instead of following that train of thought. “Is it to your satisfaction?”

Joey hummed his agreement then gave the salad a half-hearted poke with his fork. “‘S simply far more than a single portion,” he explained, shrugging one shoulder. “And it’s hardly like I,” his voice lowered to an incoherent mumble momentarily, “a lot.”

Bertrum ignored whatever he had said, disregarding it, because the more pressing matter was that the alcohol likely had not even hit him fully yet. They needed to cut the night short, it seemed. “Hen--” 

Already, Henry was waving down their waiter, requesting their tab be closed and handling the matter of payment. 

“Alright,” Bertrum sighed, “we are leaving shortly.”

Joey’s smile strained, the edges slick with his obvious mortification. “I apologize, kitten” he mumbled. 

“Everyone overestimates themselves occasionally,” he dismissed the apology, focusing on Henry as he finalized payment. “Shall we disembark?”

Standing proved less of a challenge than Bertrum had feared, Joey only minutely leaning into him as they rose from their chairs. Rather, it was walking and attempting to keep Joey from crumpling to the floor that nearly undid them. Thankfully, Henry stepped in just then, folding Joey against his side in a friendly, ostensibly platonic hug and helped guide Joey on a straighter path out the door and into the freeing isolation of the crisp night air.

How in blazes had Joey become so spectacularly out of sorts from little more than a single glass of wine? 

The old wive’s tale of the cold sobering the inebriated was entirely and offensively false, Bertrum learnt as they waited for the valet to return their automobile, the neon lights pooling around their feet and casting odd shadows on their countenances. 

“S’freezing, kitten,” Joey complained, leaning heavier into Henry with each passing second. 

Rolling his eyes to the sky and begging whatever might listen for patience, he agreed, “What an astute observation. Here comes the valet.”

“I’ve got him,” Henry assured him, smile as warm as the night was cold. “You drive.”

Hissing in frustration, Joey tried to yank free as Henry attempted to steer him into the backseat, but the larger man simply exerted more strength and forced him to sit despite his protests. Even if it weren’t for the simple fact that drunk men belonged in their own beds, Bertrum’s studio apartment would not suffice for the three of them, and Henry’s apartment was clear on the other end of the city. 

Resting his head against the window, Joey silently slid down in the seat. Bertrum would have to trust Henry to watch him while he watched the road lest they crashed.

“I got him,” Henry preempted Bertrum’s questioning. “Go ahead and drive.”

.

By the time they arrived, Joey was barely conscious and, when Henry lifted him out of the automobile, clung to him not unlike a kitten burrowing into its mother’s belly. Still, Bertrum shifted uneasily from either foot and fiddled with the brim of his hat. Henry _was_ strong, stronger than he appeared, but he wanted Joey asleep, not knocked unconscious from being dropped on his head.

“Are you certain you have a firm grip?” he asked Henry yet again as he finished unlocking the home. “I could help carry him.”

“‘M not _that_ heavy,” Joey grunted in protest. Bertrum startled a little. 

“Sorry, dear, hadn’t realized you were still to be counted among the living. Come on, let’s get you into bed.”

Only trouble was that Joey’s bedroom looked like Bendy threw up in it. Not literally, but nearly every surface was covered in piles of sketches, inked frames, storyboards both finished and half finished scattered about, stacks of pages with countless lines of Joey’s distinct handwriting, some with occult symbols and arcane diagrams, others with smatterings of another script between and layered over Joey’s own writing, pages upon pages dripping in blue and red ink and smeared with graphite.

The walls with pages pinned, taped and stapled in place, the rubbish bin overflowing, loose sheets that had fallen to the floor and the notebooks they likely fell out of upended and face down. The desk was covered, as was the bed.

“The guest room,” Bertrum’s voice dropped to a whisper in his shock as he continued to take in the absolute wreckage that Joey’s bedroom had become. He never knew Joey to be a fastidious man, but this was disorganization and chaos that spoke of far too many hours without rest. He swallowed, the taste of his martini suddenly in the back of his throat once more, then abruptly spun on his heel and left, forcing the door shut behind him as if to ward off the thoughts and implications of the state of the room.

By the time he joined Henry and Joey in the guest bedroom, Henry had already forced him out of his shoes, suit jacket and other restrictive clothing, and into a loose fitting shirt that Bertrum was certain had to be Henry’s or Bertrum’s own, considering the bagginess of it. 

He opened his mouth to ask something, anything, but could not find the words and didn’t wish to rouse Joey, though he doubted much would, in fact. Henry spared him his awkward silence, smiling genially at him, before pressing a kiss to Joey’s forehead and rising to meet Bertrum in the doorway.

“Living room?” Henry suggested and, oh, the thought sounded lovely. Bertrum nodded eagerly and melted as Henry wound his arm around him.

At first, they simply sat on the couch together, nuzzled into one another, as Bertrum struggled to find the words to articulate the scurrying, frantic anxiety in his throat that seemed, at least superficially, without distinct origin. Henry’s thumb on his shoulder moved in soothing circles, and, resting his head against the larger man’s chest, Bertrum comforted himself with the steadiness of his respirations and heartbeat.

Bertrum broke his silence. “A single glass of wine should not have caused such an effect in him,” he said. The words fell flat, landing like dull spears.

“Wine always hits Joey like a bunch of bricks,” Henry explained with a shrug. “The fact he got caught up in his work and didn’t eat much probably didn’t help though.”

He screwed his eyes shut, the sight of Joey’s room coming unbidden. “And that is another thing.”

“Oh?” Now Henry’s fingers were at his collar, loosening his tie best he could one handed. “Go on, doll.”

“He’s overworking himself, obviously.”

“Hm.” Henry made a noncommittal noise, much to Bertrum’s shock. “I’ll admit, he was on a time crunch between the Bendy deadline and trying to, you know, get Bendy ‘animated’.”

That room looked like far more than the disorganization of a man rushing to meet a deadline. 

“That said, did you _have_ to immediately nitpick him and tell him where he went wrong on Bendy?” Henry asked, disappointment clear as day in his voice even as he moved Bertrum to lay against his chest. 

A flush of embarrassment and shame filled his chest, though he had been certain Joey knew he was joking. 

“He’s not _blind_ ,” Henry continued. Guilt bloomed ever more in Bertrum’s chest, thick and thorny vines as he recognized that Henry had a point. “He knew it wasn’t anywhere near perfect. But he was proud of it, and you just kept pointing out everything wrong with it and mocking him.”

“I was only kidding,” he protested, meekly, cowed in the face of his actions. 

“Did _he_ know you were kidding, Bert?” 

“I—”

“Because, really Bertie, it came across as mean spirited and degrading.”

Stunned into thoughtful silence, Bertrum chewed his bottom lip and slid his hat off his head, lowering it to rest on his belly. “I’ll apologize in the morning,” he decided. “It was never my intention to insult him.”

Henry hugged him tighter. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions and well meaning jokes. And accidental insults.”

That was certainly true. Bertrum shifted in place, easing his shoes off and letting them join Henry’s beside the couch, before he burrowed and nestled against his body, finding the perfect space. 

“Tomorrow’s a new day,” Henry murmured, slipping his large hand up Bertrum’s shirt, calloused fingers following the curves and lines of every muscle in his back. “Sleep.”

He did, lulled into unconsciousness by the steady see-saw of Henry’s breathing and the tingling of fingers along his skin. 

.

Hard elbows and hard knees rammed into his thighs and back, an oddly gangly weight settling against him and rousing him from his slumber. 

Bertrum guessed, “Joey?”

“You abandoned me,” the weight mumbled, words slurred with sleep this time rather than alcohol. 

“You should be in bed.”

“So should you two,” he insisted. “Join me.”

“It is a full-size mattress,” Bertrum explained, far more patiently than he felt, remembering Henry’s reprimand from earlier. “Three grown men do not easily fit a full-size mattress.”

Joey grunted. “Fit on the couch well enough,” he argued. Then, voice suddenly dropping to something downright fragile, he nearly begged, “Please. Indulge me. Just for tonight. Please.”

Sleepily, groggily, Henry mumbled an agreement, or something close enough, and began to sit himself upright, holding both men up as he did so. Apparently, they were relocating. Bertrum sighed and began running a hand through Joey’s hair, his other collecting his hat. 

“Let’s go, then,” he decided, Joey mumbling his agreement and Henry acquiescing by lifting both men up to their feet and shuffling them toward the guest bed. 

Indeed it was a tight fit, Henry on one side and spooning Bertrum and Joey in turn. Joey nearly slid off the edge, and as Bertrum hastily caught him, he realized there was bone where before he was certain there had been only flesh and muscle. Swallowing thickly and not sure what else to say, he whispered, “Sweetness?”

In lieu of a proper response, Joey edged back, pressing his hips against his, and kissed at his jaw, cheek, lips, as he spun around and pressed Bertrum’s face against his neck. “Sleep,” he mumbled. “S'Warm.”

It certainly was warm, especially when Henry finally drew the covers up. 

Bertrum laid there for several dozen minutes, listening to the soft snores and breathing of his boyfriends. 

.

Creator’s touch, gently scorching and firm and vital, lingered with it for long after he left it alone. The room it was placed in to wait, to “be patient, buddy”, was large and cluttered with papers and many varieties of pens filled with ink that did not sing, gleam or spark. They all sat lifeless and it stayed far from them. It was confused, of course, but Creator had told it to wait because he would return soon. 

It trusted Creator, trusted the smile and the words that echoed thickly and backwards, as he spoke the language it Knew and the language he knew. 

Do not open the door, do not touch the papers, Creator had ordered, and it obeyed Creator. It was happy to obey, to please Creator, because he whispered to it. 

“You aren’t perfect yet,” Creator had said, tone sparkling with his promises. “You _will_ be. You will dazzle, and amaze, and enrapture the minds and hearts of all, but not today. Believe me, I will not rest until you are perfected, buddy.”

New gold rose up and tangled behind its own smile. 

“So he managed it after all, ” the golden voice echoed. It — he, the voice hissed in its consciousness — he strode closer and knelt before it, pressing hands to its torso. “Hello, little thing. What an odd creature you are.”

Creator did not tell it what to do when faced with this gold voice, this golden smile. He gleamed sickly, color shifting in tones too quickly to name, and it cowered. 

“Now, there is no need for that, is there, _buddy_?”

It whined. 

“If your owner won't play nice, you’ll have to do.” His smiled broadened and shone ever brighter. “Oh you will be fascinating. How did he manage you without losing a limb?”

Fear, oily and gritty, curdled inside it as it tried to back away from his touch, only to find a wall, or a desk, or something else. The lifeless ink shifted and twisted as the golden man approached. His fingers twitched across its front, trailing, dripping.

The door flew open with a wailing, nonsensical, “Der nawr naw ner! Hoo hah!”

Deep, dark, vibrant, this one exploded into brightness and neon. He, _he,_ the young-not-young one did not smile, but it trusted him far more for it. His eyes were clear, unobscured green, shimmering with glee and jocularity, and though they passed over it, they did not linger, did not judge.

“Oops! Sorry doc!” He laughed. The sound colored the air every possible shade of joy and happiness and safety. “Thought everyone had gone home! It’s really late, y'know?”

“Why, hello, Wally,” the golden doctor spoke (scalpel, tearing, opening and learning, the gold thread through the ink intoned.) “I am surprised to see you after hours. Though perhaps I shouldn’t be. You seem to show up in many odd places, in many odd times.”

Wally was not and was the right name. Its brain hurt, but it was a comforting ache. A reverberation in a cavern masking words best left unheard, sounds best left unmade. 

“What do you say you and me get outta here, doc?” Wally suggested to the golden doctor, thoroughly ignoring it in the room and allowing it to scurry along the blockage and out of reach. “I know this real good joint that’s open all sorts of weird hours. Found it once, in one of those many odd places and odd times.”

“Are you… coming on to me?”

“Ew no. You’re old enough to be my father.”

It was far out of reach now, and the space heated up with the security in that fact. 

“You might have at least pretended to entertain the thought,” the doctor protested, tone rounded and bland with affront. 

“Nope. You in for fries and the world’s best chocolate shake or you gonna loaf around here?”

“Who pairs a _chocolate_ shake with fries? Strawberry is the obvious choice.”

“Maybe for basic old men with basic tastes.”

“You— you— you are a _brat_! A stupid child!”

“And you’re a lot of things, doc!” He nearly smiled, but did not. “We’re all lots of things. Let’s get outta here already, they’re open late, not always.”

It shrank back, feeling his golden attention upon it, but it was only fleeting. His golden fingers retreated, lifting from its torso, though the ink remained, sparking with his influence.

“Fine,” he agreed. His smile turned to brumous rage, no less wide or razor sharp. “Your treat, however. Mr. Drew does not pay me nearly enough to cover your absurd hunger.”

“I’m growing!” Wally protested, laughing, so beautiful, lighting up the room. “But… I agree to your terms, Dr. Hackenbush.”

Wally’s smile spread like a stain that lingered, much like Creator’s touch, after they had left. 

  
  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Pit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24201523) by [Random_ag](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_ag/pseuds/Random_ag)




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